English Conversation Teaching by Pairwork Technique for The First Year English Majored Students

Accepted Jun 10, 2018 This research applied Classroom Action Research (CAR) to know if Pair-work technique is appropriate used to teach English Conversation. This research was conducted in two cycles of teaching learning activities, it was attained that the students’ ability at speaking could be increased which found the students’ test scores from pre-cycle (before doing treatment) to the second cycle (after the treatment done) increased. In the pre-test denoted that 78.1% (25 students of 32 research subjects) got scores below 70, in the post-test of cycle one was attained 90,6% (29 students of 32 research subjects) got scores 70 up and in the cycle twopost test 93,75% of the students got scores 70 up. This strategy could also drive the students actively taking part in the classroom.


INTRODUCTION
A Teacher's thought about teaching -learning process will certainly have impacts on the way he teaches. In recent years, language teaching has been focused on the learning process rather than the teaching of the language. The emphasis is not only on linguistic competence of language learners but also on the development of the communicative ability. Learners need to learn how to use the target.
In terms of the language use, it is still found some undergraduate students are still poor at spoken language even few of them finished their study, this phenomenon drives the writer to find out the alternative solution to overcome this problem. This problem may be able to overcome by applying appropriate technique. One of the techniques is pairwork technique. In teaching speaking, the Instructor should be able to bring students to use the target language naturally. In pairwork activity students had opportunity to explore ideas by using the target language. The Instructor's role is a facilitator during the class-taking place, the situation was learnerscentered activity.
We may be in one point of view that a good English Instructor should not only master the subject matter but also he should be able to create a good classroom atmosphere. Based on a research findings in USA in 1999 denoted that the common problem of English language learners is 'speaking'. The phenomenon is also faced by students of English Department of Faculty of Tarbiyah Science and Teacher Training-State Islamic University of North Sumatera Medan -Indonesia. It might be most undergaraduate students.
A good teaching process takes students' interests; the studens take part in the process of learning. An ideal teaching conversation is Teacher Talk Time (TTT) should be less than Students Talk Time (STT) because the students need more opportunity to use the target language than the teacher does, this is what we called learners-centered activity. This research discussed about : i) How is the implementation of pairwork technique in Speaking class?, ii) How is the classroom atmosphere when the pairwork technique being applied?, iii) How is the students' ability at speaking after being taught by applying pairwork technique?. It is hoped that this research finding can be a consideration for English speaking Instructors as the alternative technique for Englsh speaking class.

Theory of Speaking
In communication process, language is as a media for people to express ideas both in written and spoken language. Language is a formal system of signs governed by grammatical rules of combination to communicate meaning. This definition stresses the fact that human languages can be described as closed structural systems consisting of rules that relate particular signs to particular meanings (Bloomfield, 1914). There are some elements of speaking should be mastered by language users: 1. Connected speech: effective speakers of English need to be able not only to produce the individual phonemes of English, but also to use fluent connected speech. In connected speech sounds are modified, omitted, added, or weakened. It is for this reason that we should involve students in activities designed specifically to improve their connected speech.
2. Expressive devices: native of English change the pitch and stress of particular parts of utterances, vary volume and speed, and show by other physical and non verbal means how they are feeling. The use of these devices contributes to the ability to convey meaning. They allow the extra expressions of emotion and intensity, students should be able to deploy at least some of such supra segmental features and devices in the same way if they are to be fully effective communicators.
3. Lexis and grammar: spontaneous speech is marked by the use of number of common lexical phrases, especially in their performance of certain language function. Teachers should therefore supply variety of phrases for different functions, such as: greeting, agreeing and disagreeing.
4. Negotiation language: effective speaking benefits from the negotiatory language we use to seek clarification and to show the structure of what we are saying (Harmer, 2002:269).
We often need ask for clarification when we are listening to someone else talks. Speaking is not only having amount of vocabularies and knowing the grammatical structures, but also mastering all elements of speaking above. In the other words, the elements of speaking are necessary for fluent oral production, distinguishes between two aspects -knowledge of 'language features', and the ability to process information on the spot, it means 'mental/social processing (Harmer, 2001). The first aspect, language features, necessary for spoken production involves, according to Harmer, the following features: connected speech, expressive devices, lexis and grammar, and negotiation language.
In order to wage a successful language interaction, it is necessary to realize the use of the language features through mental/social processing -with the help of 'the rapid processing skills', as Harmer (2001: 271) calls them 'mental/social processing' includes three features -language processing, interacting with others, and on-the-spot information processing. Again, to give a clearer view of what these features include, here is a brief explanatory: -language processing -processing the language in the head and putting it into coherent order, which requires the need for comprehensibility and convey of meaning (retrieval of words and phrases from memory, assembling them into syntactically and proportionally appropriate sequences); -interacting with others -including listening, understanding of how the other participants are feeling, a knowledge of how linguistically to take turns or allow others to do so; -on-the-spot information processing -i.e. processing the information the listener is told the moment he/she gets it.

Speaking in Relation to Communicative Competence
A good expression is the utterance which has rules of the language. A speaker should have communicative competence to carry out interaction with someone else. We take the view of Noam Chomsky (1967) about communicative competences. In his distinction talks about between competence -'a speaker's intuitive knowledge of the rules of his native language', and performance -'what he actually produces by applying these rules', the theory of communicative competence has gone through a serious development so far (Revell, 1991:4). Brown (1994) refers to several theories of communicative competence as they developed through periods of time, of which the most notable ones include the studies by Hymes (1967Hymes ( ,1972, Savignon (1983), Cummins (1979Cummins ( , 1980, or Canale and Swain (1980). Nevertheless,as Brown suggests, the newest views are probably best captured by Lyle F. Bachman (1990) in his schematization of what Bachman calls 'language competence' (Brown, 1994: 227-229). According to Bachman (1994: 84), communicative competence, 'communicative language ability' (CLA), comprises two basic features -firstly, knowledge, competence in the language, and, secondly, the capacity for implementing or using the competence. Bachman proposes three components that in his view 'communicative language ability' framework includes, they are: language competence, strategic competence, and psychological mechanisms. While language competence is a set of specific knowledge components that are utilized in communication via language, strategic competence is the term that Bachman uses to characterize the mental capacity for implementing the components of language competence in contextualized communicative language use; the third component, psycho physiological mechanisms present the neurological and psychological processes involved in the actual execution of language as a physical phenomenon (Bachman, 1994: 84).
The other ideas from Brown notes the illocutionary competence as functional aspects 'pertaining to sending and receiving intended meanings' while sociolinguistic aspects of pragmatic competence relate to 'such considerations as politeness, formality, metaphor, register, and culturally related aspects of language' (Brown, 1994:229).
Communicative competence really deals with the students' achievement using the language in daily communication. The writer can say that most students have more difficulty in speaking ability than the others. Speaking skill needs knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation of the language and the capability of applying them in speaking. The communicative ability can be specified into four components such Mc Namara cited: a. Grammatical or formal competence, which covered the kind of knowledge (of systematic of grammar, lexis, and phonology) familiar from the discrete point tradition of testing.  (2000:18).
The four components above show that the communicative competence needs a large insight in addition to mastering the rules of language. Moreover Harris says speaking is a complex skill requiring the simultaneous use of a number of different abilities which often develop at different rates. Either five components are generally recognized in analysis of the speech process: 1. Pronunciation including the segmental features-vowels and consonants -and the stress and intonation patterns.

5.
Comprehension. For oral communication certainly requires a subject to respond to speech as well as to initiate it (Harris, 1969: 82).
These components are important to emphasize by speaking instructor in the process of teaching-learning in the classroom.

METHOD
The research design of this research is Classroom Action Research, This design is meaningful to know the improvement of teachers' activity and students' ability after a particular technique applied. It was done to know if pairwork technique was effective to increase the students' ability at oral communication. The data analysis used descriptive quantitative approach. The Procedures of Classroom Action Research (CAR) applied consisting of two cycles which each cycle consisted of Planning, Action, Observation and Reflection. The following was the flow chart done: The instruments for data collection were used base on the data needed in this research. The data used in this research were qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data were the students' ability at speaking before and after being conducted the treatments, the qualitative data were the description of class cativities.
The following instruments were used in this research: 1. Oral Test. The scenario and questions were used to find out the data about the students' ability at speaking English.
2. Tape recorder. It was also used to record students' answer of the questions given in the test. This record was used to reconfirm the scores given in the oral test.
3. Observation sheets. The observation sheets were used to see the lecturer's and students' activity in the classroom.
4. Interview sheet. It was used to find out the data about the students' problem in Oral communication and their responds on the strategy applied in the classroom.
5. Document. Any related document was needed, such as number of students in one class, curriculum used in the department etc.
6. Diary notes. It was used to note if there is necessary information needed to complete the data of this research.
The techniques for data collection were; observing, interviewing, Noting class activities and Testing. 5. Comprehension. These component are stated by Harris (1977:81) The components of the speaking above were evaluated to define the level of students' ability at oral communication.

Scoring Technique
In scoring technique used analytic scale that categorized within four categories. Each category has five items and each item scores five, so the maximum score is 25. To get the maximum score was multiplied with 5 (Harris,1969:84

DATA ANALYSIS
The gathered data were analyzed by using descriptive analysis. The writer explained the scores gained by students in each cycle. It was done after the mean of students score computed by using the following formula (Hatch and Farhady, 1982: 55) Notes: The analysis of this research gives the mean scores, frequency distribution of students' score, histogram of students' scores and statistics of students' scores. This analysis is important to see easily the improvement of students' score from pre-cycle (before the class) to last cycle (after the class).
The analysis of the class percentage scores which got KKM (Minimum Completeness Criteria) (score 70) analyzed by using the following formula. The data found from the observation sheets were about the lecturer's and students' activities during the class took place, the data were analyzed by using the following formula.
The percentage of students' ability from pre-test to post-test 2 was presented in the following analysis.

RESEARCH FINDING
The research findings denoted that pairwork technique can attract the students' motivation to take part in language teaching and improve their ability at speaking, It can seen from the improvement of students' activities from cycle one to cycle two (82,5 % of the students took part in the teaching -learning process or at level 3,3 (good category) to 91,25% or at the level 3,6 (good category) in cycle two. The improvement of their scores was attained that the students' ability at speaking could be increased which found the students' test scores from pre-cycle (before doing treatment) to the second cycle (after the treatment done) increased. In the pre-test denoted that 78.1% (25 students of 32 research subjects) got scores below 70, in the post-test of cycle one was attained 90,6% (29 students of 32 research subjects) got scores 70 up and in the cycle twopost test 93,75% of the students got scores 70 up.
The common problems of students in speaking are 1). Inhibition. The students were often inhibited about trying to say things in foreign language in the classroom: worried about making mistakes (grammar problem), fearful of criticism or loosing face, or simply shy of attention that their speech attracts. 2). Nothing to say. Even they were inhibited, they could not think of anything to say. 3). Mother tongue use. The students tended to switch code when they did not find a word to say something (vocabulary problem). This problem can be decreased by convincing them that reaching speaking ability needs long term process, the practice was the one way to master a language.

DISCUSSION
With reference to the research findings. It was found that the teaching-learning process in the application of workpair technique drove the students active. The process of the technique attracted the students' interesting to take part in class activities.
An appropriate technique will affect on class activities in speaking class, Traditional teaching technique will lead students to be good listeners where Students Talk Time (STT) is less than Teachers Talk Time (TTT). In recent years, language teaching has been focused on learning process rather than the teaching of the language. Workpair technique as one of the current techniques could bring the students felt interesting and enjoyable taking part in the class activities so the communicative language skills were attained, this technique brought students to speak naturally. A language instructor should not teach students with structured dialogue because they will never possess creativity and critical thinking, they do not have chance to build their own sentences. In speaking class, students should be given more chance to practice, the Instructor's role is a facilitator and he gives feedback to his students' activity. The students should feel free to express their ideas, they should not be given any correction on their utterances at the time they are speaking.
An appropriate technique for speaking class is Teacher Talk Time (T3) should be less than Students Talk Time (ST2.) In recent years, language teaching has been focused on learning process rather than the teaching of the language. Pairwork technique is one of the alternative ways to create a live atmosphere of language teaching where the students get more opportunity to practice with their classmates.

Conclusion
The role of Instructor in speaking class is facilitator in order the students have more opportunity to practice the target language and he should focus on the learning process rather than teaching the language. The emphasis is not only on linguistic competence of language learners but also on the development of the communicative ability because the learners need to learn how to use the target language. An Appropriate technique is a technique that gives students more time to practice. This research finding denoted that Pairwork technique gave the students more time to practice and the students' speaking ability increased.

SUGGESTION
It is suggested to English speaking instructor to facilitate the language learners to practice the target language instead of focusing on the linguistic competence, and not to give correction on the students' mistakes at the time they are speaking, let them speak as they can, the correction should be given at the end of the class. The speaking Instructor should also create relaxed atmosphere in class activity in order the students feel free to talk and it is suggested that Pairwork tecnique is appropriate technique in teaching speaking class.