Teaching speaking descriptive text in vocational high school Journal of English Language Teaching http://ojs.ikipmataram.ac.id/index.php/joelt DOI:10.33394/jo-elt.v6i2.2364 Volume 6 Nomor 2, Desember 2019 online: 2548-5865, print: 2355-0309 pp.106-115 106 A STUDY ON TEACHING SPEAKING SKILL OF DESCRIPTIVE TEXT IN VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL Putu Ngurah Rusmawan Politeknik Negeri Banyuwangi putungurahrusmawan@poliwangi.ac.id Abstract Teaching speaking of descriptive text in vocational high school should be in systematic way. Based on the syllabus of K13, the students had to master the generic structure and organization in descriptive text. The researcher tried to explore the teaching-learning process in the eleventh grade of SMK Kartika. This research used descriptive qualitative research. It focused on understanding the teaching-learning process from the teacher’s viewpoint of this research. This descriptive research required the researcher to explain scientifically the fact, events, and characteristics of the subject. The teacher had prepared the entire requirement of teaching and learning equipment such as attendance list, syllabus, lesson plan, media, and evaluation form. Then the teacher used the picture a media in teaching speaking descriptive text. Most of the students at eleventh graders could overcome that problem during learning speaking descriptive text. 90 % of students could comprehend the material well and 10% of students could not comprehend the material. It indicated that some of the students understood the teacher’s explanation about the descriptive text. Keywords: Teaching Speaking, Descriptive Text, Vocational High School INTRODUCTION English was widely used in the global era. It was the main key to connect international business communication. Harmer (2007:1) states that English is a language to build international relations and communication. The government should concern English subjects in vocational high school. They should design an ideal concept to improve the quality of teaching-learning English in vocational high school. Curriculum K13 was an ideal concept to help the student in having better English communication skill (Haerazi, Vikasari, & Prayati, 2019). By mastering English communication skill well the students in vocational high school could communicate well to develop their business relations. Speaking in the descriptive text had to be expanded in all aspects because it could facilitate the students to communicate well in English. Speaking is the course of constructing and contributing meaning via the application of verbal and non-verbal language. Speaking is an interactive way of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving, and processing information (Brown, 2007). Fachurrazy (2011) argues that the skill to speak English obviously and competently support the success of the learners in vocational high school and success in their future career. So, the teacher must notify the teaching of speaking descriptively. Based on the K13 curriculum recommendation, the students in vocational high school in eleventh grade must learn the descriptive text. It requires the students should be able to speak English in descriptive text fluently. Teaching speaking in the descriptive text must be taught systematically in eleventh grade because speaking mailto:putungurahrusmawan@poliwangi.ac.id 107 descriptive text skill is the first key requirement to learn other genre text in speaking skill. Based on the syllabus, the students require to comprehending the generic structure and organization in descriptive text. The students should describe a person in simple information that is an appropriate framework and they are able to speak up descriptive text about a person correctly in a descriptive text framework. The vocational high school students of eleventh grade learn about personal descriptive information and the character of that person but there are many problems that should be faced by the vocational high school especially at vocational of SMK Kartika. Based on interview data from the English teacher, the students in the eleventh grade of SMK Kartika are shy to talk, lack of self-confidence, scared to make a mistake, preferring to speak their mother tongue to answer the question from the teacher, and they are lack of inspiration and learning stimuli. They are tired of learning English because they think that English is a difficult and uninteresting subject to be learned. The teacher in SMK Kartika has an innovative technique to teach the speaking descriptive text. By using a scientific approach, the English teacher of SMK Kartika can attract the students’ motivation. The students are not bored anymore. They enjoy the teaching and learning process. SMK Kartika is the most favorite school. It has some reward for the winner of English debate competition at the regional level The researcher emphasizes on teaching speaking process in the descriptive text in this research. The researcher chooses the eleventh grade as the subject of the research because at this level the students are crucial to building the students' perspective in comprehending descriptive text. At the basic level, it is the ideal time to learn and practice to speak English. They should prepare themselves well to achieve the next level of competency. Besides, the students have some problems, such as lack of vocabulary, lack of confidence to speak English, afraid to make a mistake, prefer to use their mother tongue to answer the question from the teacher, and lack of motivation. To solve the problems the English teacher selects the picture as a media. Fachurrazy (2011) states that media is one thing as a tool to increase the interest, motivation, and quality of the teaching- learning process. Brown (2007) states that using teaching aid during the process of teaching and learning can increase willingness, interest, students’ motivation during the teaching and learning process, and it gives psychology effects for the students. Some teaching aids can be used to teach speaking descriptive text, they are puppet, pictures, visual media, flashcards, real object, and poster. In this case, the picture is one of teaching media that can assist the students to improve their speaking ability. The picture is helpful for a teaching tool to attract the students' motivation. It can be used for teaching speaking descriptive text. To capture students' interests in learning speaking descriptive text, the picture sizes used should be obvious and large enough to be presented in the whole class. As visual media which can be used in the teaching and learning process, it can facilitate the students to comprehend the descriptive text teaching material by providing an visual description 108 information (Fachurrazy, 2011). By using the picture, the students can increase their comprehension about general and specific information based on the picture they have seen. Based on the above reason, the researcher hopes that this research can improve the students’ interest in practice speaking. The researcher is interested to observe the teaching process in speaking skill of descriptive text in vocational high school of SMK Kartika. This research helps the teacher to treat their students' ineffective way of conducting the teaching-learning process especially in teaching speaking descriptive text. RESEARCH METHOD The researcher tried to investigate the teaching-learning process in the eleventh grade of SMK Kartika, therefore the appropriate research design in this research is descriptive qualitative research. It emphasizes understanding the teaching- learning process from the teachers' perspective of this research. Dornyei (2007) stated that “qualitative research methods are designed to help the researcher understand people and the social and cultural phenomena within which they live”. Meanwhile, Sugiono (2009) adds that“the descriptive study research method is a research strategy, an empirical inquiry that investigates a phenomenon within its real-life context.” This descriptive research required the researcher to describe scientifically about the fact, event, and characteristics of the subject. The researcher applied descriptive research design in this research because this research focused on specific phenomena in the surrounding school environment. The phenomena are the teaching and learning English process. This researcher did not require giving special treatment to the subject of the research. He only observed and described the phenomena naturally without manipulation. The research design consists of two steps procedure. The first was the teacher and student learning activities. The researcher observed the classroom condition of teachers' teaching-learning process. The second was interviewing the English teacher. It happened after the observation process. In the interview process, the researcher interviewed detail about the specific teaching technique which the teacher’s used to teach speaking in descriptive text. The subject of the study was the students of the eleventh grade of SMK Kartika which is located at Pasuruan regency. They consisted of 15 female students and 15 male students. The subject of the study was an English teacher. The researcher focused on how the teacher taught speaking descriptive text. Sugiono (2009) recommends that instruments some techniques in collecting data. They were observation, interview, questionnaire, and documentation. Observation aimed to know the teacher's and students’ activities in the classroom. The observation process began in opening teaching and learning teaching activity to closing teaching activity. The time of observation should be done depends on the need of data collected. By using an observation instrument, the researcher could know the students' participation in the classroom. There were some steps of observation data collection, they were (1) the researcher made field note and wrote the descriptive notes and reflective notes; (2) The researcher came in the classroom; (3) the researcher observed teacher’s 109 technique in teaching speaking descriptive text. Those methods were used to get any information about the teaching technique in teaching speaking descriptive text in SMK Kartika. The researcher observed the teacher’s technique in teaching speaking in the classroom. It took two meetings on July, 08 th and 11 th , 2019. The objective of this observation was to investigate the teaching and learning process in speaking descriptive text especially about teaching technique, the teaching material, the preparation, and the assessment. The interview is a meeting of two persons to exchange information and idea through and responses, resulting in communication and joint construction of meaning about a particular topic (Johnson et.al, 2007). The researcher applied a structured interview. He interviewed the English teacher and the students. The interview process had done before and after the teaching and learning process. The researcher interviewed the students in the last meeting. The researcher interviewed the English teacher before and after the teaching process. The questions of the interview consisted of 7 questions about the teacher’s preparation and teaching technique and 5 questions about the result of the teacher teaching technique and the students’ development in learning the descriptive text. The researcher interviewed the students in the last meeting on July 11 th, 2019. The questions consist of 4 questions about the problem in teaching speaking descriptive text. The questionnaire consisted of some questions or statements. It could be gained certain information from the students’ perspective during the teaching and learning process. Dornyei (2007) questionnaire was a number of questions to search for information about personal statements. The researcher provided the questionnaire to the students. It distributed on July 11 th, 2019. The researcher distributed the questionnaire to comprehend what the students' perspective during learning the descriptive text. The questions consisted of 10 questions. The researcher used close questionnaire. The researcher used documentation to observe the teacher’s preparation during teaching-learning in descriptive text. Sugiono stated (2009) the documentation was some written materials to produce qualitative data. The researcher documented the teacher's needs as fact during the process of teaching and learning. The documentation could be obtained from the classroom activity and teacher’s lesson plan, syllabus, and assessment. The researcher collected the data by using field notes. The researcher collected the data about the syllabus, lesson plan, media, material, and teacher evaluation. Documentation was done on 08 th and 11 th July 2019. The data collection in this research was in written text. It stated in the field notes and interview transcript. In this research, the researcher analyzed data naturally and inductively. These data were a crucial aspect to support the qualitative research design. From the data collection, the researcher got the information about the teacher’s strategy and technique used during teaching speaking skill in the descriptive text in the eleventh grade of SMK Kartika. The data analysis was done qualitatively and inductively. The data were gained systematically. It searched and arranged to answer the problem and enable to present the result simultaneously. The data are discussed and based on the 110 review of the literature of the study. They were analyzed descriptively. FINDING AND DISCUSSION The data were gained from the interview process with the English teacher about teaching technique and the teachers’ preparation. The researcher also interviewed students to solve the students’ matters. The observation data were the teaching process in teaching speaking descriptive text and the students learning activity in the classroom. The questionnaire was the students’ opinions during classroom activities. Then, documentation data were the description of the teachers’ preparation and the result of the students’ speaking descriptive text. Based on the English teacher data interview 11 th July 2019, the English teacher stated that the teacher had made teaching preparation to make the teaching process more effectively. The teacher made preparation such as attendance list, syllabus, lesson plan, material, media, and evaluation form. The researcher documented the teacher preparation included the attendance list, syllabus, the lesson plan, material, media, and evaluation form on Juli 08 th and 11 th , 2019. The teacher had prepared to teach preparation before the teaching-learning process. The first teacher’s preparation was the attendance list. The attendance list had been prepared to check the students' participation in class. The attendance list was used to check the students' attendance in a class. The second teacher’s preparation was the syllabus. The syllabus had designed by the English teacher. It was a contextual teaching syllabus. It served the information about the planning of the teaching process. It was based on each standard competence and core competence. The third teacher’s preparation was a lesson plan. The lesson plan was the direction of teaching and learning activities design. It was designed systematically by the English teacher. It aimed to reach the target of the learning process. It was adopted from the syllabus. The lesson plan consisted of standard competence, core competence, learning objective, learning material, the technique used, and learning activity. The fourth teacher’s preparation was material. The teacher prepared the material well. The teacher took the material from the curriculum K13 that relevant to the core competence. The material was a descriptive text about the person. The fifth preparation was media. It supported learning English process for the students. The media was a picture. It raises the students' motivation in learning the descriptive text. The last preparation was the evaluation form. It aimed to evaluate the students during the learning process. The teacher tested the students to measure the students’ ability in comprehending descriptive text. it is in line with Aprianoto and Haerazi (2019) who state evaluation form is an essential part in the teaching of speaking skills. Based on the result of the English teacher interview on July 11 th ,2019, the English teacher used a scientific approach. The English teacher used the techniques was based on K13 recommendation. The scientific approach was an applicable technique in the teaching and learning process. The teacher allowed the students to describe some crucial notes from the teacher’s explanation. The English teacher taught speaking descriptive text using a 111 scientific approach. It was based on a lesson plan that the English teacher had made before. Based on the observation on July 08 th and 11 th 2019, The researcher found several techniques that were used by the English teacher in teaching speaking descriptive text, they were lecturing, discussion, and asking and questioning technique. The below was the result of the analysis of the teacher’s teaching activities. In the first meeting on 08 th July 2019, the teacher conducted teaching activity by using Apperception in 10 minutes. The pre-activity was done in 10 minutes, it contained greeting, praying together, and checking students’ attendance list. First, the teacher greeted the students, then, the teacher asked the students to pray together, and checked the students’ condition physically and mentally. After that, the teacher checked the student’s attendance list. Two students were absent on that day. The teacher gave brainstorming to the students by asking the students about the material in the previous meeting. The teacher explained the teaching objective in this activity. The teacher continued to the main activity which was done for about 60 minutes. The teacher asked the students to open the students’ books. The main teaching was observation, questioning, exploring, associating, and communicating. In observation teaching the main activity, the teacher showed a Justin Bieber picture. Firstly the teacher asked to describe his character and his physical description in detail. The teacher also asked to mention the differences between Justin Bieber and Vin Diesel. Students answer that Justin Bieber was a popular singer in American pop song but Vin Diesel was a popular actor in fast furious movies. Then the teacher answered that was true. The teacher asked about Justin Bieber in detail again to the student. The students answered Justin Bieber was a young and energetic singer. The student could describe well and detail. The teacher explained the definition, social function, the generic structure and provides an example of the descriptive text by showing the generic structure. The teacher described the descriptive text based on the picture. In questioning teaching main activity, the teacher had already explained descriptive text well and the students were interested in the teacher’s explanations. They were curious and they wanted to apply their teacher explanations. The teacher instructed the students to make a group consist of 5 members in each group. The teacher asked the students to choose their members. The students were ready to discuss the material together. In teaching main activity exploring, the teacher discussed the material together based on the students’ group. The teacher asked each group to practice speaking descriptive text together with their friends. The material in speaking descriptive text was asking and giving personal opinion description, characteristics, physical appearance and performances. In teaching the main activity associating, the teacher controlled and monitored students’ discussion to know the result of the discussion in each group. The students must be able to speak well. The topic of what they had discussed should be clear and they might express their opinion in a certain time and then, their member group had to respond to their friend's opinion. In teaching main activity communicating, the teacher got the 112 information about the students’ speaking skill. The students had discussed the problem with their friends. They could interact well. The teacher continued to post activity. In post activity, the teacher summarized the material of the descriptive text. The teacher gave feedback and opinion about the material that day and gave the information about the next lesson. The teacher reminded the students to be careful in stating their idea, their pronunciation, and flows of the idea, fluency, word choice, and clarity. In the second meeting on July 11 th , 2019, the pre-activity contained greeting, praying together, and also checking students’ attendance. After that, the teacher checked the student’s condition physically and mentally. Then the teacher reminded the students about previous material that had discussed before. The teacher continued to the main activity. In the observation section, the teacher explained the language features of the descriptive text. After that, the teacher asked some questions about the descriptive text. The students seemed enthusiastic to answer the teacher’s question. Although some students’ were less lack of participation in classroom discussions, the classroom process runs well. Then, the teacher gave some problem discussion topics about personal description. It was a favorite idol. The students were interested in that problem and the students began to discuss together. In exploring the main teaching section, the students interact and tried to solve the problem and the teacher walked around to monitor the students. The teacher tried to get information about the students’ skill. The students began to solve the problem and they identified the problem. After that, the students tried to speak systematically. They spoke about generic structure and the language features of the descriptive text. In this part, the teacher served 10 minutes to express their idea. In associating the main teaching section, the teacher monitored the students during the students expressing their idea. After the students finished speaking and expressing their idea, the teacher asked the students to discuss together. The teacher guided the students in expressing the idea about the idol. Then, the teacher tested the students individually. In communicating the main teaching section, the teacher tested the students’ orally and individually. It took 15 minutes. The teacher continued to post activity. Finally, in Post activity (10 minutes), the teacher concluded what had been learned to the students. The teacher reminded the students to practice more about speaking descriptive text. The teacher also gave feedback about the material. The teachers’ problems were the students’ skill in low mastering vocabulary, students’ attitude, and students’ motivation. The teacher manages the classroom well but some of the students often making some noise in a class such as disturbing another student, disobeying students, talked by their selves when the teacher explained the material. The teacher met difficulties in organizing the time. To solve that problem the teacher had to manage the classroom well and the teacher should be on time in running lesson plans for each section. Many students had low skill in mastering vocabulary because they did not understand the meaning of the word to express their opinion. The students needed more time to understand meaning from the 113 problem to express their idea. The students were afraid to express their idea because they doubted their answers. Based on the interview, the teacher’s evaluation formed was needed to know the information about students’ skill in teaching speaking. The test was in a group and individually. In the first meeting, the teacher evaluated in group work test and in the second meeting the teacher tested the students individually. The students require achieving a score over 70 because KKM in SMK Kartika was 70. Evaluation could correct the students’ mistakes by giving corrective feedback. The teacher used the same scoring rubric in every test. The scoring rubric contained the content of the idea, fluency, pronunciation, clarity, and word selection. The teacher had prepared annual program, semester program, syllabus, lesson plan and media. Teacher prepared well the document during the classroom process. The teacher prepared the attendance list, syllabus, lesson plan, material, and media. The attendance list was to check the students’ presence. It helped the teacher to know the students’ activity. The teacher could use the attendance list to monitor the students’ participation. The syllabus was formulated based on the competence standard and core competence. Richard (2001) defined syllabus design was a phase in curriculum development that deals with procedures for developing teaching plan sequences. The lesson plan was the key of an effective teacher (Susanto, 2010). It was the process of developing the teaching activity, the curriculum, and the teaching context. It was about determining lesson objectives. It included teaching procedure, the materials, time, duration, and assessment. Instructional materials provided ideas, facts, and information. Richard States (2010) the requirement of the professional educator was able to select meaningful Instructional materials. It helped the students to reach a learning objective. Media is important to attract students’ attention during teaching- learning process. Harmer (2007) defines that media is an essential part of teaching. The media should be prepared before the teacher entered the class. The instructional media could increase students’ motivation. The teacher used a media picture in teaching speaking descriptive text. The picture could activate the students’ idea. It could be a new innovation of teaching- learning in the classroom. Slavin (2009) recommended that pictures are a great encouragement for language production. In the interview, the teacher stated that the teacher used a scientific approach. The teacher used a scientific approach in every meeting. The teacher said that a scientific approach is more practical. The teacher thought that the students will comprehend the material easily. In scientific had 5 section activities, there was observation, questioning, elaborating, associating and communication. The researcher found that the teacher taught by using discussion, asking and question technique. The teacher taught the students by discussion in the first meeting. The teacher should make the students' discussion seriously to solve the students’ problems. The problem was about giving an opinion of the personal descriptions of the descriptive text. In the second meeting, the teacher gave an individual problem. The teacher used asking and questioning to the students. The effective questions technique 114 in the classroom should be meaningful and contextual (Slavin, 2009). The researcher found the students’ problem in learning speaking descriptive text, they were pronunciation, vocabulary, and confidence. The previous problems that had been mentioned before had a correlation with each other. If they were doubt, they would pronounce silently. It was indicated that they did not know the vocabulary and how was the pronunciation. They chose to be silent. They were afraid to make a mistake. This situation happened when the teacher monitored the students around closely and carefully. Based on the questionnaire, a few numbers of students were not interested in English but some of the students enjoyed the lesson about speaking descriptive text. The students could comprehend the material well. They solve the problem smoothly. The teacher expected that the student could practice more outside class. . The students did the problem in the group. There was three groups who got score 80 above the minimal passing grade (KKM). Few groups could achieve passing grades because the other group could not understand well about the teacher’s instruction. In the second meeting, the teacher tested the students individually. The rubric score was stated in the lesson plan. Many students could pass passing grade KKM. The highest score was 91. 90% students got the score above KKM. CONCLUSION Based on the researcher’s findings and discussion presented above, it could be taken a conclusion that teaching and learning process run well because the teacher had prepared the entire requirement of teaching and learning equipment such as attendance list, syllabus, lesson plan, media, and evaluation form. Then the teacher used the picture a media in teaching speaking descriptive text. In teaching and learning speaking descriptive text, the teacher and students face several problems. They were low vocabulary mastery skill, low confidence, disobedient students and afraid to make a mistake. Most of students at eleventh graders could overcome that problem during learning speaking descriptive text. 90 % of students could comprehend the material well and 10% of students could not comprehend the material. It indicated that some of the students understood the teacher’s explanation about the descriptive text. The teacher assessed the students’ speaking skill by giving corrective feedback to the students’ in the group and in an individual. In the first meeting, the teacher assessed the students and gave the score in the group work. In the second meeting, the teacher assessed the students individually and gave the score in individual. REFERENCES Aprianoto & Haerazi. (2019). Development and assessment of an interculture-based instrument model in the teaching of speaking skills. Universal Journal of Educational Research 7(12) 2796-2805. https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2019.0 71230. Bache, C. (2008). The Living Classroom: Teaching and Collective Consciousness. NY: State University of New York Press. Brown, H. (2001). Teaching by principle. New York: Pearson Education, Inc. https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2019.071230 https://doi.org/10.13189/ujer.2019.071230 115 Brown, H. (2002). Strategies for Success: A Practical Guide to Learning English. New York: Pearson Education, Inc. Brown, H. (2007). Principle Language Teaching and learning. New York:Pearson Education, Inc. Dörnyei, Zoltán. (2007). Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press. Fachrurrazy. (2011). Teaching English as a Foreign Language for Teachers in Indonesia. Malang: Malang State University Press. Haerazi, H., May Vikasari, R., & Prayati, Z. (2019). The use of scientific- based approach in ELT class to improve students’ achievement and classroom interaction. Register Journal, 12(2), 157-180. https://doi.org/10.18326/rgt.v12i2.15 7-180. Harmer, J. (2007a). How to Teach English. Essex: Longman Person. Harmer, J. (2007b). The Practice of English Language Teaching Essex: Longman Pearson. Johnson et al. (2007). Educational Research: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Approaches. New York: Sage Publication. Richards, J. (2001). Curiculum development in Language Teaching. Singapore: Cambridge University Press. Slavin, R. (2009). Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice. NY: Merill. Sugiono. (2009). Metode penelitian keantitatif, kualitatif dan R&d. Bandung: Alfabeta. Susanto. (2010). Konsep Penelitian Tindakan Kelas Dan Penerapannya. Surabaya: Unesa Universty Press Susanto. (2010). Silabus & RPP: Mata Pelajaran Bahasa Inggris untuk SD/MI, SMP/MTs, SMA/MA dan SMK/MAK. Surabaya: Fakultas Bahasa dan Seni Universitas Surabaya. https://doi.org/10.18326/rgt.v12i2.157-180 https://doi.org/10.18326/rgt.v12i2.157-180