Senin, 19 Desember 2016

Pedagogical Values of Mobile-Assisted Task-Based Activities on Improving Students’ Competence in Speaking Skill for Senior High School

Pedagogical Values of Mobile-Assisted Task-Based Activities
in Improving Students’ Competence in Speaking Skill
for Senior High School

ABSTRACT
Mobile technologies prove to be beneficial in language learning. The aim of this research is to investigate the pedagogical impact of the mobile-assisted task-based activities in improving students’ competence in speaking skill. This study applies an action research technique to conduct the research. The study is conducted in Indonesia with second grade students of senior high school as the participants. They are conducted via online recorded task based activities through WhatsApp mobile application. The activities include 3 stages: pre-task, cycle task, and post-task. Pre- and post-tests are implemented to determine the improvement of students’ competence in speaking skill. The research findings indicate that mobile-assisted task based activities is effective on improving students’ speaking skill. The result of this research is learners outperform in regarding their speaking skills.

Keywords: Pedagogical Values, Online Task-Based Activities, Mobile-Assisted Language Learning, Speaking
           
INTRODUCTION
Speaking skills can benefit from the pedagogical values of mobile phones which can serve educational purposes, such as developing language learning. Speaking as a mean of communication is a way of making your ideas, sharing them with other people and of influencing other people. It is more highly structured to the ability to use the language for communicative purpose (Lucas, Stephen, 2009, p. 4).
Arnesen, Korpas, Hennissen, & Stav (2013) stated “there is a need in the new educational framework for mobile-assisted task-based activities aimed at developing learner skills rather than just assessing learner knowledge and proficiency” (p.70).
In the earlier study, it has some limitations that need to be highlighted. Firstly, mobile-assisted task-based activities enable the teacher to diagnose not only group performance but also each student’s performance. Further, more research is needed to investigate the effect of mobile-assisted task-based activities on improving students’ competence in speaking skill.
On the basis of these data, the decision is made to create pedagogically advantageous for language teachers, teacher educators, and material developers. In the current study, the researcher tries to investigate the way of effective learning through mobile technologies, a shift from teacher to students, via m-learning.
 

LITERATURE REVIEW

A.  The Nature of Speaking
Given the importance of speaking skill, it is not surprising that it has been taught and studied around the world for thousands of years. According to Rizvi (2006: 92), speaking is an interactive communicative process that involves speakers and listeners. In communicative process, speakers need to learn to adapt their talk to the listeners; use a range of ways to express themselves; use talk to clarify their ideas and sustain their talk to develop thinking and reasoning.
Speaking can be difficult because it requires a number of abilities which everyone has a different level. Thornburry (2005: 40) proposes the terms of the basic knowledge that enables in speaking skill, such as: grammar, vocab, intonation, and pronunciation.
B.  MALL (Mobile Assisted Language Learning)
Mobile technologies are expected to be an innovation of pedagogical practices in education. The concept of MALL (Mobile Assisted Language Learning) has come into existence. MALL is a branch of technology-enhanced learning which can be implemented in classroom. Moreover, learners are able to access and communicate with their teachers and peers at any time. As Kloper et al (2002) mention that there are four properties of mobile devices which can result pedagogical affordances:
1.        Portability: the small size and weight of mobile devices eases the relocation of these technologies within different sites.
2.        Social interactivity: mobile devices can help the face-to-face data exchange and collaboration among the language learners.
3.        Connectivity-connecting: the ability to gather and respond to the real or stimulated data via the current location, environment and time.
4.        Individuality: the various tasks and activities can be customized for the individual and team
C.                Online Task-Based Activities
Technology is expected can improve learning process including in creating a task. We can access anything at any time from any mobile phone with internet access, integration of graphics, audio, and text; and ease and low cost of publication (Kern and Warschauer, 2000). These activities are concern with the students’ activity. The function of the teachers are to create and provide various tasks so the learners get a chance to learn by themselves and able to apply to real life situations.
Adopted from Ellis (2006, pp. 19-20), there are three stages activities, such as: pre-task, during task and post task. The pre-task phase is a process where the topic is introduced and the instructions of the tasks are given by the teacher. In during task, the teacher provides the students in negotiating words or phrases, grammar, and pronunciation when and where needed. The teacher is also available for students to call for advice or to give feedback in language (Frost, 2004). While in post task, the students are conducted discussion. It is ended with presentation.
ACTION PLAN
A.      The Subject of The Research
This research applies at second grade students of senior high school. There are 42 students in this class as the participants: twelve male learners and thirty female learners.
B.       The Method of The Research
In this study, the researcher applies the action research to conduct this study. The action research is the reflective process whereby in a given problem area, where one wishes to improve practice or personal understanding, inquiry is carried out by the practitioner - first, to clearly define the problem; secondly, to specify a plan of action, evaluation is then undertaken to monitor and establish the effectiveness of the action taken. Finally, participants reflect upon, explain developments, and communicate these results to the community of action researchers. Action research is systematic self-reflective scientific inquiry by practitioners to improve practice (McKernan 2000: 5).

C.      The Action of The Research
A representation of an action research by Kemmis (cited in Hui, F. N., 2011: 48) is provided in the following figure:
In order to conduct the present study, the researcher uses the same steps. The following steps are taken:
1.    Planning
In this stage, the researcher plans the pretest to know the students’ previous competence in speaking skill, the lesson plan to conduct the classroom activities, the post-test in order to know if there is any improvement in the students’ competence in speaking skill through mobile- assisted task-based activities.
2.    Action
In this stage, students are expected to follow three stages: pre-task activities, task cycle, and post-task activities.
In the pre-task activities, photos play an important role. The students are enhanced to communicate, give and ask opinion and experiences among themselves and comment to each other. Moreover, teacher facilitates them to interact to each other and gives comment and feedback to their presentation.
During the task cycle, the researcher performs opinion exchange tasks asking students an opinion-based question on the lesson’s topic. The participants are required to ask each other question and to comment on others orally. Teacher gives advice, comment and feedback to their opinion and ideas.
In the post-task activities, participants are expected to present what they discovered. It primarily focuses on summarizing the outcome of the task.
3.    Observing
In this stage, the researcher observes their learning process and their engagement or their involvement, their response, their attitude of the learning process during the speaking class during the implementation of mobile- assisted task-based activities.
4.    Reflecting
After conducting the teaching and learning activities under the mobile- assisted task-based activities, the researcher evaluates the result to investigate the effectiveness of the action program so the researcher knows whether it is necessary to conduct the action program in teaching and learning activities.
D.      The Possibilities of The Research
a.        The Condition Before The Research
There are some conditions of the students before the research, as follows:
-       low motivation
-       low achievement
-       cannot speak fluently
-       stuck in making ideas
-       grammatical error in making sentence
-       the atmosphere of the classroom not alive
-       not use interesting technique to get the students’ interest
-       monotone activities

b.        The Condition After The Research
There are some improvements in students’ speaking ability after the research, such as:
-       learning motivation
-       achievement
-       ability to speak
-       ability in making ideas
-       the use of grammar.
In addition, there are also some improvements in classroom situation after the research, such as:
-       atmosphere of the classroom
-       technique in teaching
-       the form of activities.
From the data above, it means that mobile-assisted task-based activities can improve students’ competence in speaking skill.
E.  The Challenge of The Research
There are some challenges in doing this research, such as:
-       how to make the students speak a lot
-       how to teach in a serious way but relax
-       how to make students curious
  
REFERENCES
Arslanyilmaz, Abdurrahman. (2012). An Online Task-Based Language Learning Environment: Is It Better for Advanced- or Intermediate-Level Second Language Learners?. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology. volume 11 Issue 1

Bahram Moghaddas, Hassan Bashirnezhad. The Pedagogical Applications of Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) in Improving the Iranian EFL Learners' Oral Performance. International Journal of Applied Linguistics and Translation. Vol. 2, No. 1, 2016, p. 8-14. doi: 10.11648/j.ijalt.20160201.12

Diana Achmad, Yunisrina Qismullah. (2014). Pair-Work Task in an English Speaking Class. International Journal of Instruction. Vol.7, No.1
E. Lucas, Stephen. (2009). The Art of Public Speaking (10th ed.). Americas, New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hui, F.N. (2011). Improving Students’ English Speaking Skill Through Content-Based Instruction. Retrieved from diglib.uns.ac.id.
Mujiningsih, E. S. (2009) Improving Students’ Speaking Ability Through Project Work: A Classroom Action Research at SMK Negeri 2 Surakarta in the Academic Year of 2008/2009. Sebelas Maret University, Surakarta.

Titova, S. (2015). Use of Mobile Testing System Pele for Developing Language Skills. In F. Helm, L. Bradley, M. Guarda, & S. Thouësny (Eds), Critical CALL – Proceedings of the 2015 EUROCALL Conference, Padova, Italy (pp. 523-528). Dublin: Research-publishing.net. http://dx.doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2015.000387

Brusch, W. (2016). The Methodology of Action Research. Retrieved from https://www.ew.uni-hamburg.de/einrichtungen/ew4/bilunt/forschung/brusch-methodology.html


Rabu, 07 Desember 2016

Strategies Based Instruction : A Means of Improving Adult EFL Learners’ Speaking Skill

Strategies Based Instruction : A Means of Improving Adult EFL Learners’ Speaking Skill
Strateji-Temelli EÄŸitim
          Speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning which is comprised of producing and receiving information. The CALLA (The Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach) instructional design is chosen to enhance their learning which is comprised of five phases; preparation, presentation, practice, evaluation and expansion
          Let’s we discuss each of the strategy. First, the preparation stage occupies a fundamental place in providing a learner-centered classroom, which is the heart of strategy training. Second, the presentation phase, speaking strategies are explicitly modeled, explained and named. According to the content of  the speaking activities in the participants’ regular course  book,  the  speaking strategies  are  chosen  and  they  are  modeled to  the participants explicitly. Third, the practice phase, the experimental group students practice the strategies that are explicitly named and modeled by  the  researchers. Fourth, the  evaluation phase,  participants  in  the  experimental group evaluate  the  new speaking strategies  they dealt  with and  learne  during  the  course. Last, the expansion phase, students should be able to decide what strategy they need to use when they come across with a problem.
        There are some plans that will be implemented in the future; make lesson plan that appropriate with their level, know their background knowledge before doing teaching learning in the classroom, give material appropriate to their need, always motivate them to study, and monitor their progress.