Paper Title International Journal of Language Teaching and Education 2018, Volume 2, No.1, 31 March ISSN Online: 2598-2303 ISSN Print: 2614-1191 International Journal of Language Teaching and Education (IJoLTe) Page 41 Improving Students’ Speaking Skill By Using Show And Tell Method: A Classroom Action Research Betty Kasita Bangun University of Jambi, Jambi, Indonesia bettykasitabangun@yahoo.co.id How to cite this paper: Bangun, B. K. (2018). Improving Students’ Speaking Skill By Using Show And Tell Method: A Class- room Action Research. International Journal of Language Teaching and Education. 6(2), 41-48 Accepted: 28 March, 2018 Published: 31 March, 2018 Copyright © International Journal of Language Teaching and Education. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution InternationalLicense (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4 .0/ Abstract This research employed a qualitative study using a Classroom Action Research ap- proach by Kemmis and Mc. Taggart which was done during 3 cycles. Each of the cycle consists of four phases; planning, acting, observing, and reflecting, while each cycle was done in two meetings. Data were collected through the observation sheet, field notes, interview and and tests. The research findings show that there were improvement on students’ speaking skill. In cycle one, the process of teaching learning with Show and Tell Method suggested a potential improvement, the re- searcher found some minor technical problems and weaknesses that leave rooms for improvement. Afterward, necessary alterations and revisions were done and later applied in cycle two and three. The result of the research suggested that the students show a tremendous improvement during the process of teaching learning when Show and Tell Method was applied. The students’ participation and vocabu- lary mastery were increased; they were more active, enthusiastic, and confident in speaking. Subject Areas Language Teaching Keywords Show and Tell method , Speaking Skill INTRODUCTION Speaking becomes one of the fourth skills to be mastered by Junior High School students besides Listening, Read- ing and Writing. There are interactive process of con- structing meaning that involves producing and receiving and processing information (Brown, 1994). By speaking, the students are expected to be able to communicate and express the meaning of language in a transaction and interpersonal spoken text to interact with surrounding. In teaching and learning process, speaking seems difficult to students. Based on the researcher’s experi- ence as an English teacher in SMP Satu Atap Sungai GelamMuaro Jambi, there were some problems during speaking class. One the most problematic causes that always hamper students to speak in language learning process is the lack of vocabulary. The students got diffi- culties to find the appropriate words to express their ideas. Due to the level of the students, they were seem- ingly grasping hard for words whenever they try to speak. As the result, most students preferred to be quite. Beside lack of vocabulary, the most troubling factor in Open Access http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Betty Kasita Bangun International Journal of Language Teaching and Education (IJoLTe) Page 42 speaking is lack of participation. When the teacher asked some questions, they just kept silent and hesitated to answer. It took long time for them in uttering something and responding to questions by using simple short an- swers with long pauses because they were not confident enough and afraid that they might make mistakes in vo- cabulary, pronunciation or other aspects of speaking. As a result of these two problems in speaking, the students became less participative and showed low motivation especially in speaking activity. They did not enjoy the lesson. Based on the problems above, the needs for an at- tractive method of learning to stimulate students to speak and improve students’ ability in speaking are ur- gent. The teacher should be creative in finding the ap- propriate method that can encourage students to speak. One of the methods is Show and Tell Methods. Since it is applied in the school, Show and Tell Method becomes intriguing to be implemented. This is because this meth- od has just recently been implemented in the school where the research took place. LITERATURE REVIEW Speaking skill has become an academic attention since a long time ago. Proven by numerous definitions and meaning offered by established experts. Bailey (2005), for one, stated that Speaking is “an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information, often spontaneous, open-ended and evolving, but it is not completely unpre- dictable.”(p.2). Richard (2006) stated that in speaking, speaker needs to produce and communicate fluently, and accurately. Meanwhile, Brown (2007) stated that some- one has competence in speaking when he or she is doing his or her actual speaking of the language. Hammer (2007) also said that speaker needs to understand about speaking event, and basic language functions; transac- tional function and interpersonal. Taking together and ground all those into account to the classroom where students needs to practice speaking English with their own style, students need to get used to speak more nat- urally. Natural speaking can be practiced by repetition and memorizing. It always happens in the classroom. It is supported by Clarke (2009), who stated that the use of repetition is an important strategy to assist in the learn- ing of the second language. Saying the same thing more than once will give more than one chances to understand what is being said. Repetition, consequently, will also affect students’ confidence, activeness and enthusiasm. In Indonesian classroom context, teaching speaking is quite challenging for English teachers. This is due to lots of limitation on teachers’ part as well as students’. That is why in teaching and learning process, teachers ideally need so many variations of attractive methods of teaching the speaking skills to stimulate students to par- ticipate more in learning speaking and improve their ability in speaking. According to many literatures, among numerous teaching speaking methods available, one of the most effective one that can motivate students to speak and to participate to speak in learning process is a method called Show and Tell method. Show and Tell methodis basically defined as a method in teaching and learning process by sharing time activity for students. According to Barletta (2008, as cit- ed in Mortlock 2014) Show and Tell method denotes a practice whereby children are given opportunity to share an oral narrative about an object or experience. The ob- ject or experience is usually from their home-life and told orally with their peers and with the teacher’s support. Thornbury (2005) stated that the procedure of Show and Tell Method that giving presentations or talks in real life the experience of standing up in front of their mates and speaking for a sustained turn is excellent preparation for real-life speaking. While the benefits of Show and Tell method is best stated by Moffet and Wagner (1976 as cited in Bohning, 1981) stated that some benefits of doing Show and Tell method are to improve communication skill and practice it in front of audience. It also becomes happy time with other mates to share with about something special, talk- ing about their feeling, excited or proud about it. This methodhas also given opportunity to students to develop Betty Kasita Bangun International Journal of Language Teaching and Education (IJoLTe) Page 43 their language skill and with careful coaching, it can as- sist children in enhancing their communication skills and confidence in sharing narratives or speaking to groups (Poveda, 2001 as cited in Mortlock 2014). A study by Endarweni (2014) entitled “Implementing the Show and Tell Techniqueto Improve the Speaking Skill of Grade VIII Students at SMP PembaharuanPurworejo” shows that the implementation of the Show and Tell Tech- niquewas effective. From the evidences, it could be con- cluded that Implementing Show and Tell Technique could improve the speaking ability in English teaching and learning process for grade VIII students of SMP Pembaharuan Purworejo. METHODOLOGY The method employed in this research was CAR. Accord- ing to Burns (2010), CAR is a part of a broad movement that has been going on in education. It is related to the ideas of ‘reflective practice’ and ‘the teacher as research- er’. In this method, there are four components in one cy- cle for conducting classroom action research; planning, action, observation, and reflection which were conducted integratedly like spiral. Each phase is concluded based on the previous one and the next. The instruments used to collect the data are observation checklist, field notes, in- terview and video-taping, tests- which are administered to measure the students’ speaking skill after each cycle. The method used is qualitative method and numerical data as supporting data. The data in the form of qualita- tive method is obtained from the observation done by the collaborator during the teaching learning process about the whole activities and the students’ participation. It is done by checking the list of activities during the teaching learning process. Furthermore, it is also supported by taking field note and the interviews are done after the teaching learning process. While numerical data are ob- tained from the tests in form of speaking performance. The result of the test within each process is analyzed to see the improvement of the student’s speaking skill. It shows the improvement of the student’s speaking score as one of the evidence of the effectiveness of Show and Tell method for the student’s speaking skill. The score of the students’ speaking skill are rated by rating scale adopted from Heaton; rating scale (1990) that described about the students’ ability to communicate orally namely; excellent (6), very good (5), satisfactory (4), fairly satis- factory (3), much difficulty (2), and extreme difficulty (1). Moreover, to see the students’ improvement, the re- searcher calculated the speaking score by using numeri- cal data obtained from the conversion of the rating scale into numerical data. FINDING AND DISCUSSION This action research was conducted on August, 1st2016 – September, 30th 2016. The data consists of tests, interview result, observation sheet, and field notes. To support the data, the researcher also used video taping to record the process of the research. The data of tests showed the improvement of the students’ achievement in speaking. Field notes and the observation sheet showed the students’ participation in teaching and learning process also suggested positive impacts on stu- dents. Interviews showed the students’ positive feeling after being implemented in using Show and Tell Method. In implementing Show and Tell Method, the researcher found the effectiveness of this method in the classroom which can be seen from the process of each cycle. Moreover, the researcher also found the result of interview and field note to support the research result. As mentioned in methodology, the research com- prised of 3 cycles. Each cycle consists of 4 steps; (1) planning, where the instruments were prepared in doing the action, such as syllabus, lesson plans, the material used in implementing the action, supported media and also the evaluation material after conducting the action to measure the students speaking’s improvement, (2 and 3) acting and observing, where the actions were implemented. The researcher did the actions as planned in the lesson plan. The collaborator observed the students by checking the students’ observation sheet, and (4) reflecting, where the researcher evaluated the actions and made conclusion of what needed to be im- Betty Kasita Bangun International Journal of Language Teaching and Education (IJoLTe) Page 44 proved in the next cycle.  In every cycle, the steps of the activity imple- mented in doing show and tell are;  The teacher explains about the rules in doing the activity.  The teacher collects the students’ objects in a box and shares Q-A cards.  The students are divided into groups.  The teacher takes one object from the box.  The student who owns the object shows his/her object in front of the class.  The student tells about his/her experiences when getting the object in front of the class.  Other students discuss and interview related to the story by using the interview.  Card given after friend’s presentation (only for cycle one). In cycle I, the material was about recount text, while the specific theme was “My Experience”. The actions were implemented twice on August, 2nd 2016 and August, 5th 2016. Generally, there is an improvement in term of students activity and interest in the classroom In implenting Show and Tell Method, the researcher found the students enjoyed the lessons. Some of them seemed enthusiastics and confidence in speaking even though they made mistakes in performing their presentation. It also showed that the students were encouraged and enthusiastic by using Show and Tell method. By raising the question, they got interested in friends’ presentation and started to speak. Furthermore, based on teacher’s field note, the students who presented their experiences could share ideas to others but not fluent enough. When they were performing, it took long time to speak and also they mixed with their mother language. It was also seemingly easier for them to understand because they talked about their own experiences. However in this first cycle, the researcher still higlighted some problems;  While in general, participation is increasing, some students are found to just keep silent or were not fluent enough in doing monologue because they did not understand about the material.  Despite students showing interest, some students were not engaged in the activity due to limited vocabulary.  Moreover, some objects were too small for big class, so the other students could not clearly see the object. Based on those data, the researcher made improvement in revision for the next cycle. The actions of Cycle 2 were conducted on August 12th and 16th, 2016. In this cycle, the objects are changed into form of pictures. In the second cycle, there were some significant improvements of the students during the English teaching and learning. In solving problem for silent students, the researcher gave chance to discuss in pair, modify the group by considering the students’ ability, add more time for discussion, bring bigger objects, mix the languageintheinstrucuon.For the reflections, the researcher interviewed some studentsto know the teaching and learning process in both meetings. Based on the students’ interview, some students said that they were excited to the activities. Here, they had to bring picture related to their best experiences. The researcher had informed the task the day before so they had enough time to prepare for the next day presentation. The students followed the activities easier. The students learnt more enjoyable in their group. They also felt more challenged because they were asked to retell about their own experience based on the picture they had. Even most of the students spoke ungrammatically monologue, they enjoyed the activity. Based on the result of field note, it seemed they had memorized their story before. It meant that they had willingness to prepare their presentation. Even it was not natural, but there was progress in their learning English. Furthermore, the other progress was the students were active and motivated to ask questions when other students had presentation. Moreover, they also had willingness to help their friends in group who Betty Kasita Bangun International Journal of Language Teaching and Education (IJoLTe) Page 45 had limited understanding about the presentation. It meant that grouping influenced them to be active. Besides, the students also were enthusiastic in the learning process. It seemed when a student had pre- sented his monologue, the class was crowded. Mean- while, when discussing, most of students prepared their own questions and felt proud if they asked many ques- tions. Moreover, they also had curiosity about other ex- periences. It meant that Show and Tell Method was effec- tive to engage students to be active and more enthusias- tic. However, in implementing Show and Tell method, few were less active. They were slower than other stu- dents. It happened because other students got involved enthusiastically and proud if they raised many questions. It made slow students had similar question with other students. It was proven that Show and Tell method led the students compete each other. It would influence them in speaking. The more they asked, the more confi- dent they were. The result above is also supported by Murlock (2013) who stated Show and Tell method also creates competition among students. The researcher also agreed that this method increased students’ participation either individual or peer. Based on the reflection at the end of cycle 2, some revisions were still needed to max- imize the participation for all students in the class to be implemented in cycle 3. The actions of Cycle 3 were conducted on August 30th and September 2nd, 2016. Based on the reflections of Cycle 2, the researcher made a revised plans. In solving problem for vocabulary, the researcher asked the students to make lists of vocabulary of their own object at home and the lists would be shared in group. This would enrich their vocabulary. For grammar, the researcher prompted the students to make sentences in the Past Tense before presentation through game. Spe- cifically, the researcher asked the students to stand up, and led in question about making sentence in past tense and the students who answered the questions could sit. For slower students, the researcher moved and mixed them to the other group that could help them. For the this cycle, the researcher did not give the card for ques- tioning and answering session and also in meeting one of the next cycle, the researcher emphasized the activity for the students. In the other words, the researcher focused on students’ difficulties in vocabulary and grammar. The class activity was done as planned. In cycle three, the material was still about recount text. The topic was about gift or prize that they had ever had. They were also asked before to bring object related to the topic. They brought dictionary, mobile phones, camera stick holder, hats, shirts, trophy awards, dolls, and pillow. All students were pleasant to bring their own object and those who forgot asked to substitute with others. This negotiation defined the improvement of enthusiasm among students. Based on teacher’s observation, in cycle 3, it was found that the students’ activeness, confident, and enthusiastic were increased.It could be seen from the result of observation, field note, and speaking test. Post test indicator also confirmed the improvement. After this cycle was finished, the researcher felt highly satisfied with the process and progress achieved by the students during the learning. The implementation of the Show and Tell method to improve speaking skill as the focus of this current study was conducted over a period of three cycles within 3 months (6 meetings). Before the researcher started do- ing the research on the subject of this research, the students’ speaking skill was very low; particularly chal- lenging in terms of vocabulary competence, in extension, students were also mostly very reluctant to participate in classroom discussions or doing speaking activities. Bearing this problem, the researcher, as an English teacher in that school conducted this research to improve their speaking. Before the researcher started doing the research on the subject of this research, the students’ speaking skill was very low; particularly challenging in terms of vocab- ulary competence, in extension, students were also mostly very reluctant to participate in classroom discus- sions or doing speaking activities. Bearing this problem, Betty Kasita Bangun International Journal of Language Teaching and Education (IJoLTe) Page 46 the researcher, as an English teacher in that school con- ducted this research to improve their speaking. The stu- dents’ participation, both quality and quantity has pro- gressively increased by each cycle. For instance, when a student stood up in front of their friends to tell his/her experience, other students were more active in giving their friends the questions related to their objects. This dynamic also happens during the preparation of the stu- dents who showed more enthusiasm in facing their speaking assignments such as preparing the objects, discussing it with their friends and teachers and even to negotiate their tasks. During the teaching and learning process where Show and Tell method was implemented to improve speaking skills, the researcher noticed a fast-paced pro- gress shown by the students in responding to the learn- ing. It can be seen from the data gathered through field note, observation sheet, interview, and also tests from the first cycle until the third cycle. The data gathered from these instruments showed that the students were more eager in following the lessons, more encourage participating in solving and exercising speaking tasks and psychologically relaxed that they could learn while had fun in the learning. In addition to this, the sessions where students have to respond the questions from the audience also helps create the opportunity for the performer to elaborate their ideas or points about the topics (their objects). It engaged the students to speak up in the classroom. It is supported by Thornbury (2005), who stated that the procedure of Show and Tell Method in form of presenta- tions or talks about real life experience such as standing up in front of class can prompt students to speak more. In the last cycle, it was found a high improvement of students’ behavior in speaking by using Show and Tell method. Besides tests’ result and also observation sheet, the result of interview also showed that Show and Tell Method improved students’ speaking in the classroom. Moreover, this method also enhanced them being active, confident, and enthusiastic in learning English. One of students interviewed stated told that Show and Tell Method increased his confidence in speaking in English. The test results also suggest a significant improvement. By seeing the whole research findings, it can be seen that Show and Tell method is very useful to enhance the students in speaking. Moreover, by implementing this method, the students’ speaking skill was improved. They were confident, active, and also enthusiastic. In line with the result of this current study, several related research which has conclusively suggested the positive findings by implementing Show and Tell method. CONCLUSION Show and Tell Method was implemented by asking the students beforehand to bring objects related to the topic of the lesson and then asked to narrate the random ob- jects they had gathered first. Since the first cycle when the method of Show and Tell was implemented, the re- searcher had already noticed an improvement during the process of teaching and learning process, particularly in speaking tasks. While the activities are mostly designed to help students to be more active such as doing presen- tation in front of the class and followed up by question and answer sessions where the opportunity to speak was maximilized, the speaking tasks were enhanced. During the first cycle, the students’ responses were viewed to be positive. Improvement can be seen already especially from students’ enthusiasm and the atmos- phere of the classroom; the students seemed to be really enjoying and had fun in the classroom. Consequently, their participation is increasing and the intensity of the speaking also positively went up. However, some of the technical problems and challenges are still clearly inter- fering the process of the learning. For instance, some students were still confused of the teacher’s explanation due to the manner of the teachers’ language which is rel- atively fast and using full English while the students’ lev- el is still considered low. Another problem is the sample object brought by the teacher in explaining was consid- ered too small such a large class. In consequent, the in- struction was less effective. The lack of familiarity of the method of Show and Tell also hampered the students Betty Kasita Bangun International Journal of Language Teaching and Education (IJoLTe) Page 47 understanding of how details of the activity should be proceded. The third problem is the grouping process. In dividing the students to some groups, the students chose their own group member. It made the group members quality were not balance. All these problems were re- vised and implemented in cycle 2. In cycle 2, the revisions of the cycle one were im- plemented. Regarding to the students’ confusion caused by language, the researcher then changed the language by using code mixing. The effect was immediate and the students understood the instruction and explanation clearly. The researcher also brought a larger object to the class as a sample for the students. The revisions done during cycle 2 resulted in a significant improvement on the process. The level of participation and quality of the speaking outcome also shows that students were more receptive of the lesson and reflected it by their perfor- mance and presentation. During the cycle 3, the re- searcher implemented the revised plannings. To raise equality of speaking, the chance to speak was not only used to simply dominant students but everyone was mo- tivated to participate, especially the quite and reversed students. Regarding vocabulary, the researcher asked the students to prepare the list of vocabulary clues (key words) at home. This is in order to help the students to be easier and more anticipative in understanding the presentations. The implementation of the Show and Tell method has conclusively improved the students’ progress in teaching and learning process. Students’ participation in speaking activities and tasks can be seen by some of the- se regards: Students’ psychological responses; students seem to be more emotionally inclined in following the activities, they seemed to have a lot of fun with their classmates and their groups, they did not seem bored or sleepy as usual. Instead, they seemed happy and enjoying the tasks given to them. Students’ enthusiasm; showed by their focus on the lesson and activities. In group, they actively involved in completing the tasks by asking each other questions re- garding the topics. They also were more willingly to make personal effort to contribute in solving the tasks such as making preparation for the presentation includ- ing even doing negotiation of his chosen object and fol- lowed the teacher’s instructions without even a slight reluctant as usual. Students’ activeness; during the speaking activities, the students’ level of participation and contributing in class speaking discussion and activity increased signifi- cantly, especially in cycle 3. Students asked and an- swered questions more to their teachers and their friends. The designed competitive atmosphere inflicted by this method also encouraged the students to achieve more, by extension, speak more. They viewed that they were “better” than others of they ask or being asked more. This set the class activity where students compet- ed in being more active especially after their friends did their presentations. Students’ confidence; as the effect of Show and Tell method, each student was given equal opportunity in speaking task. Supported by the relaxed and friendly au- ra of the classroom, students were more enjoyed in doing the activity. This helps them a lot for them to be psycho- logically ready for the time of presentation and answer- ing questions. They did not feel intimidated and had no burdened to speak what were in their mind, They were more confident in speaking and doing presentation even when they made errors either in vocabulary or gram- mars. By seeing the whole research findings, it can be seen that Show and Tell method is very useful to enhance the students in speaking. Moreover, by implementing this method, the students’ speaking skill was improved. They were confident, active, and also enthusiastic in the class- room. From the evidence shown by the result of the cur- rent study and also many other previous research adopting the same method, it could be concluded that Show and Tell method can significantly improve students speaking skills as well as the process of teaching and learning in which that method is being implemented. In summary, Show and Tell Method improved students’ Betty Kasita Bangun International Journal of Language Teaching and Education (IJoLTe) Page 48 speaking skill and also their behavior or interest in speaking. The result of this study also proved that this method is effective to motivate the students in the class- room who were not active, not confident, and also not enthusiastic in speaking to improve more in every aspect in teaching speaking skill. REFERENCES Bailey, M. K and Nunan, D. (2005). Practical English Language Teaching: Speaking, New York : The McGraw Hill Companies Brown, H. D. (2004). Language Assessment: Princi- ple and Classroom Practice. New York: Pear- son Education Inc Brown, H. D. (2007). Principles of Language Teach- ing and Learning (5th Ed). New York: Pear- son Education Inc Bohning, G.(1981). Show-and-Tell: Assessing Oral Language, Reading Horizon Journal, 22,1-5. [online]. Available at http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading. 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