Improving Speaking Skill Through Self-Talk Strategy

Abstract

Speaking skill is a skill that necessitates a great level of self-confidence. Self-talk strategy, or dialogue with oneself, is believed to be able to increase students' confidence in speaking English. The aims of this research to determine the effectiveness of the Self-Talk strategy in improving speaking skills as well as students' self-confidence in learning English. The design of this research is Classroom Action Research (CAR). The study involved 20 students of class X at SMK Laboratorium Jakarta as respondents. This research includes 3 cycles where each cycle has 4 stages: planning, action, observation, and reflection. The technique of data collecting in this research as: observation, interviews, speaking tests, and questionnaires. The results of this study indicate that learning reaches the specified target. This can be seen from the results of increasing scores from cycles 1 until 3. The average value in cycle 1 is 51.6 = 20%; cycle 2, the learning target increased to 69.5 = 35%; and cycle 3 learning targets increased again to 76.4 = 75%. The results of this research can be said that the use of the Self-Talk strategy can improve speaking skills as well as build students' confidence in learning English.