An Action Research at English Department FKIP UNMUL Samarinda

Abstract

This study aims to gain deep understanding of the improvement of the students ability  in speaking English through contextual teaching and learning at the English Language Department of afternoon class at the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, University of Mulawarman Samarinda.The speaking skill improvements were measured from the four speaking aspects: fluency, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. Method used in this research was action research and conducted in two cycles. The data of the research was the learning proses and the results of improvement in speaking by using the Contextual Teaching and Learning approach. Data analysis is by using qualitative and quantitative method. Qualitative method here means that the researcher used verbal description to explain the data whilst the quantitative method means that the researcher used numbers, percentages, tables and graphics to describe the data.  The results indicated that learning English speaking by using the Contextual Teaching and Learning approach could improve the students’ speaking ability, as shown in the improvement of their score at pre-test, the test at the end of cycle 1 and the test at the end of cycle 2 of this research. The data  showed the improvement process of students’ speaking skills, as shown from the average score results of pre-test namely 60.21;  from cycle 1 was 70.60 and cycle 2 was 76.12. So, it  proved that Contextual Teaching and Learning could  improve the students’ English speaking skill.

Keywords: contextual teaching and learning, improving, speaking skill