The Effect of Using Problem-based Group Discussion Technique to Improve Transactional Speaking Skills of Second Grade Students at Vocational High School 5 Gowa

The results of this study indicate two things namely the first; Problem-based group discussion techniques can improve students' transactional speaking skills. That is evidenced by the results of the statistical analysis of the significance level of P = 0.05 with degrees of freedom (df) = 9 indicating that the t-test scores of students' speaking skills (3,498) are higher than the values of t-tables. (2,262). Second; there are seven factors that affect the improvement of students' transactional speaking skills, namely cohesiveness, suitability, roles, goals, charismatic leadership, inspiration and competition & conflict. The outcome of this research is to help the students improving their transactional speaking skills in exchanging information, taking a part in formal discussions or having a good presentation and even learning to work in real-life situations by using problem-based group discussion techniques. Therefore, the teachers will be able to use a new teaching technique that is good and they may leave the old technique because the school has been applied 2013 curriculum

PROBLEM-BASED GROUP DISCUSSION: AN EFFECTIVE ELT TECHNIQUE TO IMPROVE VOCATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ TRANSACTIONAL SPEAKING SKILLS

In this millennial era, English speaking skills are very necessary for young learners, especially for Vocational High Schools students. However, few teachers still have difficulties in choosing the right technique to teach the speaking skills. Consequently, students feel that speaking is the hardest skill in English. This paper is aimed at discussing how to improve the students’ transactional speaking skills (group discussion) using problem-based group discussion technique at Vocational High School 5 Gowa. A quantitative research design was used to carry out this study with support from the data collection instrument i.e. speaking video test (group discussion). The design of this study conducted using a quasi-experimental with nonequivalent control group design. Twenty (20) students in two classes i.e. ten students for the experimental class and ten students for the controlled class of the intermediate level were purposively selected to participate in this study. The results of this study showed that the problem-based group discussion technique is able to improve students’ transactional speaking skills. It was proved by the result of the statistical analysis of the level significance P = 0.05 with the degree of freedom (df) = 9 indicated that the t-test values of the students’ transactional speaking skills (3.498) was higher than the t-table value (2.262). The outcome of this research indicates that this technique is effectively able to improve the students’ transactional speaking skills in exchanging information, taking a part in formal discussions and even learning to work in real-life situation

Factors that Affect the Improvement of Students’ Speaking Skills through Group Discussion Technique: A Case Study at Vocational High School 5 Gowa

The present study aimed to investigate the factors that affected the improvement of students’ speaking skills through group discussion technique at Vocational High School 5 Gowa. To carry out the phenomena, this study employed a descriptive qualitative methodology. The data were collected by using semi-structured interviews to obtain the deepest data about the factors that affected the improvement of students’ speaking skills through discussion technique at Vocational High School 5 Gowa. The populations were all classes in second grade, and then the samples were two classes that were chosen deliberately or purposively through nonprobability sampling. From the two classes, the participants were comprised of twenty (20) students, and each class involved 10 students. To analyze the data, this study used a thematic analysis process to discover the themes or factors that emerged as the data later. The results revealed that there are seven factors as themes appeared in this study, they are cohesiveness, conformity, roles, goals, charismatic leadership, inspiration, and competition and conflict factors. In conclusion, the seven factors assisted the students in improving their speaking skills; such as conveying ideas freely, having good confidence in speaking, and learning to respect other members’ ideas. The finding of this study can encourage English teachers at vocational school to use group discussion technique in their English classes to reach better teaching speaking skills improvement of the students