CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter discusses the background of the research, the research questions,
the purposes of the research, the significances of the research, limitation of study,
rationale, and previous research.

A. Background of Research
This study aims to find out the effect of self-talk strategy in students’ speaking
ability. It is important to investigate because it can influence students to develop their
speaking skills. Speaking is one of language skills that should be learned.
There are four skills to monitor in English: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
Speaking is the capacity to enhance the mechanism of the communicative competence,
pronunciation, intonation, grammar, and vocabulary. In addition, a significant
percentage of the worlds’ language learners study English in order to be able to
communicate fluently. Speaking can be described as the ability to properly express our
ideas and opinions in a particular language. Some people assume that the ability to
speak a language is the result of learning languages. They believed that communicating
was a vital part of the process of language learning.

Speaking exercise is difficult to try for beginners. They feel, naturally, confused
with the rules, such as vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and fluency (Tasmia,
2019). Speaking is one of difficult skills, because the foreign language learners
sometime are afraid in making mistakes when they try to speak. One of the problems
in learning speaking are the learners afraid to express their ideas, language, how to use
grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation in their communication with the people,
(Hughes, 2011: 6) cited in Rianimgsih (2015). In speaking class, some of the students
are afraid to involve with conversation. This leads many students to have poor English
grades. In speaking class, students should be able to be taught how to speak. In other

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opinion, Turk (2003:20) cited in Nurdianti (2020) states that spoken language is the
first form of communication between human. From the argument, it can be inferred
that speaking is the first ability that should be the first time anyone learns languages.
According to Thornburry (2005:1) in Purba & Sihombing (2018) speaking is a
part of daily life that people take it for granted. It is an important part of everyday
interaction and most often influence a person due to their ability to speak fluently.
Therefore, students should be able to understand what they are talking about to make
others understand well. A language problem actually serves as one of the important
reasons behind poor academic performance (Doris & Jessica, 2007) in Fitriani et al.,
(2015). Having more problems may become the obstacles for the students to enhance
and improve their speaking ability.

However, based on the researcher’s limited observation at Mts Al-Mu’awanah,

Majalaya, Bandung there were problems in speaking experienced by students. These
are some problems that they commonly face. The first problem is the students
considered speaking is difficult, they are afraid of speaking English. The second is that
students afraid of making a mistake, of being laughed by their friends. The third, the
students have lack of confidence in speaking and lack of vocabulary. Thus, the research
plans to use self-talk strategy to promote students’ speaking ability. This strategy,
which can be used to apply students speaking in communication or conversation, is a
strategy that can be used in speaking class. It is helpful to inspire students to talk. They
are going to talk to them in self-talk strategy.

Based on Vygotsky (1986) in Purba & Sihombing (2018) theory of the

internalization of dialogue as inner speech, self-talk regulates how students feel and act,
interpret what they experience, guide and control academic achievement, and
determines the quality of students’ live.

According to Nielsen (2008:113) in Nurdianti (2020), self-talk is a conversation

that a person carries a mentally about self, about other and environment. It can help

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students to deliver their thinking and feeling easy because self-talk give good
contribution for the students to explore their knowledge and makes the students were
the creative one.

Regarding to self-talk strategy, the researcher took previous study completed by

other researchers. A research by Purba & Sihombing (2018) indicates that self-talk
strategy can help students to come closer to themselves and to learn to trust their actions.
In addition, using self-talk strategy has the influence to increase students’ confidence
to be more focus and aware about themselves. A research by Rustiawan (2017) found
that the students’ speaking achievement by using Self Talk Strategy shows the
improvement of the students’ speaking ability in terms of fluency and accuracy.

Still, this research is different from previous researches in term of identifying

students’ speaking ability, particularly in speaking accuracy focusing on the use of
grammar and vocabulary. In comparison to the research above, the study focuses on
“Self-Talk Strategy in Teaching Speaking English at JHS Context: The
Implementation and Students’ Speaking Ability”.

B. Research Questions
Referring to the background above, formulation of this research is as follow:
1. How is the implementation of using Self-Talk Strategy on EFL students’
speaking class?
2. How does the Self-Talk Strategy promote students’ vocabulary and grammar in
their speaking?

C. Research Purposes
From the research questions above, this research aims to:
1. To find out the implementation of using Self-Talk Strategy on EFL students’
speaking class.

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 2. To find out students’ grammar and vocabulary in their speaking using Self-Talk
Strategy.

D. The Significance of Research

This study is expected to become a source of information about improving students’
speaking ability using self-talk strategy. Practically, this research gives significance to:
1. Students
The result of this research is expected to help students promote their speaking
ability using self-talk strategy.
2. Teachers
This research could contribute to all teachers to consider students’ speaking
skill and determine the implementation of community language learning
method can improve students’ speaking skill.
Theoretically, this study can be beneficial information for curriculum planner as
evaluation for creating improvement for students in speaking ability.

E. Rationale
Speaking is a productive skill that is similar to writing. It has its own genre and it
has several stages to reach the goal using a language in an interactive way Martin &
Rose (2012). Besides, speaking is one of four language skills that important to acquire
when learning a second or foreign language. To measure the success or failure of
learning language seen from the performance of learners. However, the goal of people
learning is to be able to speak so that they can communicate well with others. As Brown
(2001) states when someone is able to speak a language it means that he or she can
carry on a conversation reasonably and competently.
According to Bailey & Savage (1994) cited in Fitriani et al., (2015), speaking in a
second or foreign language has often been viewed as the most demanding of the four
language skills. Thus, the demand of speaking fluently is high rather than other
language skills, although the others cannot be underestimated. English speaking skill

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requires the speaker to use the authentic language where it means that the students need
to use the language in any occasions or when communicate with other students in
academic context.
When students speak, they construct ideas in words; they express their perception
and feelings so that the interlocutors understand what they mean. But one of the
problems faced by students when they speak foreign language are lack of confident and
anxiety. They may feel unconfident, shy, nervous, worry, and anxious. If it happens, it
can be a big problem because they do not believe that they are being able to speak.
Speech is often clearer when a person is feeling confident and relaxed, and this is one
of the most important factors to consider when communicating with people who have
speech difficulties. Therefore, finding a method for solving speaking problems become
necessary so as to students can speak English better.
Self-talk is one of strategies for solving speaking problems. Self-talk is used to
reduce anxiety by using mental technique that make one feel competent to do the
learning task O’Malley & Chamot (1990). Based on Vygotsky (1986) theory of
internalization of dialogue as inner speech, self-talk regulates how students feel and act,
interprets what they experience, guides and controls academic achievement, and
determines the quality of students’ live.
The effectiveness of self-talk could be attributed to its effects on attention,
indicating that self-talk can be used to enhance attention focus and direct or redirect
attention to task relevant clue Landin (1994) cited in Hatzigeorgiadis et al., (2008). The
suppression of self-talk, by making students perform another simple verbal task at the
same time as the main task, can affect self-control, leading to a more impulsive
behavior Tullett & Inzlicht (2010) as cited by Sánchez et al., (2016).
As the explanation above, it can be concluded that self-talk can reduce speaking
problem especially self-confident. Through the stages of learning process, the teachers’
role is as a facilitator and counselor to help students using self-talk strategy.

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F. Limitation of Study
In this research study, the researcher employed self-talk strategy. The researcher
focused on how to promote students’ speaking ability particularly speaking accuracy
in terms of grammar and vocabulary. Additionally, this studies was applied to students
of the eighth grade.

G. Previous Research
There are studies that discuss about the effect of self-talk strategy. First, a research
is completed by Purba & Sihombing (2018). This study is taken from the third year of
students in the English Department in FKIP Universitas Nommensen Pematangsiantar.
It was an effort to find out the significance and the effect of self-talk strategy in public
speaking as EFL classroom. The research found that using Self-Talk Strategy has the
influence to increase the students’ confidence to be more focus and aware about
themselves. The students can know about their weakness, accepting their mistakes and
recognizing their potential.
Second, a research was done by Safarullah (2018). This study was taken from 8
students of SMPN 18 Pontianak. The research found that self-talk strategy can help the
students to reflecting on their own work in comprehending writing recount text and
also the students had more enjoyment in exploring their ideas. Self-talk strategy which
helped them to understand what they should write based on their experience, their start
with something coming to their mind and try to write.

Third, a research was carried out by Rustiawan (2017). This study was taken from
first grade of SMA Negeri 1 Libureng, Bone, Sulawesi Selatan. The research found that
the students’ speaking achievement by using Self Talk Strategy shows the improvement
of the students’ speaking ability in terms of fluency and accuracy.

The current research is different from the previous researches in some aspects, for
instance, participants of the research. This research involves junior high school students
as the participants. Another difference is that the previous researches focused on the

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effect of self-talk strategy in public speaking, the effectiveness of self-talk strategy in
teaching writing recount text, and the achievement of students’ speaking skill using
self-talk strategy. Precisely, this research centers on participants’ speaking skill. This
research identifies students’ speaking ability particularly speaking accuracy in terms of
grammar and vocabulary.