Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, Vol. 5, No. 2, November 2017

52

THE EFFECT OF BRAIN-BASED LEARNING TOWARD STUDENTS’
SPEAKING SKILS
Lalu Febryan Syahbandi

SMA Negeri 2 Praya, Lombok Tengah, NTB
E-mail: lalu.jorge51@gmail.com

Abstract
This study was intended to find out the significant effect of Brain-Based Learning toward
students’ speaking skills at SMAN 2 Praya in academic year 2017/2018. The method of the
research was applied experimental research (quantitative approach). The population of the
research was all the students of XI at SMAN 2 Praya and the sample of the study was 25
students consist of one classes. Based on the result of the study, it can be concluded that the
use of Brain-Based Learning has positive effect toward students’ speaking skills at SMAN
2 Praya in academic year 2017/2018, in which t-test (4.664) > t-table (1.710) (0.05/90%)
the df used 25. It indicated that the value of t-test was higher than t-table.

Key Words: Brain-Based Learning, Speaking skill

Abstrak
Penelitian ini bermaksud untuk mencari efek yang signifikan terhadap brain-based learning
terhadap kemampuan berbicara siswa di SMAN 2 Praya tahun ajaran 2017/2018. Metode
yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah penelitian eksperimental (pendekatan
kuantitatif). Jumlah Populasi dari penelitian ini adalah semua kelas XI di SMAN 2 Praya,
dan sebagai sampelnya adalah 25 siswa dari satu kelas. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian itu bisa
disimpulkan bahwa penggunaan Brain-Based Learning telah mempunyai efek positive
terhadap kemampuan berbicara siswa SMAN 2 Praya tahun ajaran 2017/2018,
sebagaimana hasil T-test (4.664) > t-table (1.710) (0.05/90%),  df used 25. Itu bisa di
nyatakan bahwa nilai T-test lebis besar dari nilai T-table.

Kata Kunci: Brain-Based Learning, Kemampuan Berbicara

INTRODUCTION
Speaking is a natural action of the

language to make someone be able to
interact and communicate with other.
Chaney (1998: 13) states that speaking is
the process of building and sharing
meaning through the use of verbal and
non-verbal symbols, in a variety of
contexts. Speaking skill  important for
someone career. however, not limited to
one’s professional aspirations. In
international relationship, the capability of
English spaking is very important. It
becomes a local content in elementary
school, a compulsory subject in junior and
senior high school and complementary
subject of the higher educational institute.

Based on the researcher found that
students at SMAN 2 Praya in academic

year 2017/2018 have difficult in learning
English especially in speaking skill. The
students were passive in class. They were
afraid and shy. This is especially true when
a teaches got interaction, such as asking
questions or tell them describe something
to the class as a whole, expecting at least
one student to respond. But the students
still cannot to answer the question or just
saying something. Students reluctant to
give feedback. These made big problems
to the students in giving the question or
answer the material or lesson at the class.

Regarding the problems faced by
teachers and students above, the researcher
proposes a solution to overcome the
problems, brain-based learning as one of
teaching technique of Cooperative
Learning to reduce students’ speaking.



Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, Vol. 5, No. 2, November 2017

53

According to Jansen, (2008) brain-based
teaching and training is a technique of
teaching speaking which make the students
interested and helped students to speak. It
was because this technique could make
students active in the classroom, develop
ideas and learn  how to cooperate in a
group and have a chance to speak English.
In brain-based learning students are
divided into several groups and each
member of the group will have a turn to
speak english.

Review of Related Literature
According to Brown, (2004:140)

speaking is so much a part of daily life that
we take it for granted. There are five
components to make fluent in produce
speech, namely fluency, comprehension,
vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar.
The Indicators of speaking according to
Brown, (2004:172) there are five indicators
in peaking skill, they are: grammar,
vocabulary, pronunciation, fluency and
comprehension. Grammar: Mastering
grammar knowledge will help one in
speaking English, because he will know
how to arrange word in sentence, what
tense will be used, how to use appropriate
utterance. In other word, grammar is
important role to master the spoken of the
language. Mastering vocabulary is first
step to speaking English if the learners do
not master vocabulary we cannot utterance
what is our purpose. It is very important in
speaking if the learners do not appropriate
pronunciation it can influence meaning of
word. In speaking, the learner must speak
fluency because listeners are able to
response what the people say. In speaking,
comprehension is needed if not
misunderstanding will happen between
speaker and listener and the
communication cannot run well.

Speaking is an interactive process of
constructing meaning that involves
producing and receiving and processing
information. Speaking is a skill of
conveying sounds of articulation to give
idea and information Burns and Tarigan,
(1997). Speaking is the product of creative

construction of linguistic strings, the
speaker make choices of lexicon, structure,
and discourse. Either five components are
generally recognized in analyzing the
speech process Brown, (2003: 157).

RESEARCHMETHOD
This study aimed to find out the

effect of Brain-Based Learning toward
students speaking skills at the second grade
senior high school 2 Praya. Miller (2005:
4) state experiment is a means of collecting
evidence to show the effect of one variable
upon another. So that way, in this research
the researcher manipulates the independent
variable, holds all variable constant, and
then observes the changes in the dependent
variable.

The type of Experimental method
used in this research is Pre Experimental
design, where in this design there is only
one group without control group. So that
way, the researcher will use one group pre-
test post-test design.

Population research only done for a
limited population and the subjects are not
many (Arikunto in Agung, 2012: 20).
Based on statement above, the population
in this research in the all of second grade
students of SMAN 2 Praya in academic
2017/2018. The numbers of population are
limited, it just 216 students as population,
so it call population research. The
population of this research was second
grade of SMAN 2 Praya that had only one
class. The class consists of 25 students. All
population is used as sample. In selecting
the sample of this research, the sampling
technique operated at non-probability
sampling, in short, it is surfeited sampling.
This technique used to determine sample if
all member of population is used to be
sample (Sugiono, 2007:124). Such a
technique is based on reason that sum of
population is relative little or less than 30
persons.

Sugiyono, (2012: 102) states that
research instrument is the tool that used to
measure the nature or social phenomena
that being research. Meanwhile stated that
research instrument is tool or facility



Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, Vol. 5, No. 2, November 2017

54

which is used by researcher in collection
data (Suharsimi, 2010: 203).In this study
researcher usedsubjective test. Researcher
used describing text as instrument to tkow
students’ speaking skill. It took a two
pictures which students had choose.

Pre-test is a test that the researcher
gives to the students to know the ability of
the students in speaking skills before
teaching and learning process conducting
by the researcher. The kind of instrument
that will be used for pre-test is describing
picture. Post-test is a test that the
researcher gives to the students to know
the ability of students in speaking skill
after the researcher giving the treatment
(Brain-Based Learning) to the students in
teaching and learning process. The kind of
instrument that used for post-test is
describing picture.

RESEARCH FINDINGS AND
DISCUSSION

This chapter lead to discuss the
findings and discussion. The researcher
collected  the  data  from the second grade
students of SMAN 2 Praya in  academic
year 2017/2018. The researcher gathered
the data by using test (pre-test and post-
test) . The  process  of  collecting the  data
was  started  with  pre-test. The result of
the pre-test was used as the basic
consideration of giving treatment.  Pre-test
in  speaking skill  was administered  to  the
subjects  under  study  to  obtain  their  pre-
existing  ability in reading comprehension.

The data showed that, the highest
score of pre-test was 60 and the lower
score was 32, after the researcher
calculating the score of pre-test by using
descriptive analysis, the researcher found
that the result of mean was 44.16 median
was 46.15, mode was 49 and the standard
deviation was 6.6. Here was the data found
in pre-test as follows:

Table 4.1
Frequency Distribution of Pre-test

Class
limits

Class
boun
darie
s

Mid
point

Tally F xi.fi %

32-37 31.5-
37.5

35 IIII 5 175 9.16
%

38-42 37.5-
42.5

40 IIII 5 200 4.16
%

43-47 42.5-
47.5

45 IIII 5 225 0.84
%

48-52 47.5-
52.5

50 IIII
IIII

9 425 5.84
%

53-57 52.5-
57.5

55 0 0 0 10.84
%

58-62 57.5-
62.5

60 I 1 60 15.84
%

Total 15 15 111
0

100
%

Figure. 1, Histogram and Polygon of
Control Group (pre-test)

The Data of Post Test
The data showed that, the highest

score of post-test was 68 and the lower
score was 52, after the researcher
calculating the score of post-test by using
descriptive analysis, the researcher found
that the result of mean was 62.4 median
was 65.36, mode was 67.4and the standard
deviation was 5.4. Here was the data found
in pre-test as follows:

0

2

4

6

8

10

Histogram and Polygon Control
Group(pre-test)



Journal of Languages and Language Teaching, Vol. 5, No. 2, November 2017

55

Table 4.2
Frequency Distribution

Class
limits

Class
boun
darie
s

Mid
point

Tally F xi.fi %

52-54 51.5-
54.5

53 II 2 106 88.3
6%

55-57 54.5-
57.5

56 IIII 4 224 40.5
6%

58-60 57.5-
60.5

59 IIII 5 295 11.5
6%

61-63 60.5-
63.5

62 0 0 0 0.16
%

64-66 63.5-
66.5

65 IIII 5 325 6.76
%

67-69 66.5-
69.5

68 IIII
IIII

9 62 31.3
6%

Total 25 25 1.012 100

Figure. 2, Histogram and Polygon of
Experimental Group (Post-test)

Testing Hypothesis
Testing hypothesis is the procedure

for deciding if the null hypothesis should
be rejected or the alternative hypothesis
should be accepted. The hypothesis was
tested by using t-test. To interpret the level
of significance of the students before and
after having treatment, calculating the t-
test was needed in this research. The
formula used was as follows:

Table 4.3
Result analysis of t-test in speaking

T Df Sig.2tailed Ha
4.664 24 0.05 Accepted

From the table analysis above,
because t-test (4.664) was higher than
critical value of t-table (2.064) at the

significant level of 0.05, it means
significant different between pre-test and
post-test was exist. Alternative hypothesis
was accepted and null hypothesis was
rejected. Because mean score of post-test
is higher than pre-test,it can be stated that
there was significant effect of Brain-Based
Learning toward students’ in Speaking
skills before and after treatment.

CONCLUSION
Based on the result of data analysis,

researcher states that the research finding
are as follows: The effect of Brain-Based
Learning toward students speaking skillsat
second gradeSMAN 2 Praya in academic
year 2017/2018). Since t–test had
significant different from t-table (4.664
>1.710). Ha is accepted and Ho is rejected.

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