According
to Brown (2004), speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that
involves producing, receiving and processing information. Brindley (1994)
defines speaking as an oral skill that is used to express a person’s
understanding, convey intended meaning accurately with sufficient vocabulary,
use language in appropriate contexts, and interact with other speakers
fluently. Some of the meanings may be able to be understood automatically while
others may need to be processed first. Lewis and Hill (1993) add that speaking
is a process that covers many things in addition to the pronunciation of
individual sounds. Based on the definitions above, it can be concluded that
speaking is a complex cognitive skill; speakers produce not only sounds but
also a set of meaningful words and body language that can be understood by
listeners either explicitly or implicitly.
There
are a lot of activities that can be employed in a speaking class to keep the
students actively occupied. Indeed, speaking class teachers have to know a lot
about this since occasionally, a single activity lasts longer than was
previously planned. Some categories are listed below:
1. Controlled Speaking Activities
·
Interview
Activities
·
Picture
Activities
·
Playing
controlled roles
·
Information-gap
Activity
2. Free Speaking /Free Role Play Activities
·
Simulation
Activities
·
Discussion
Activities
·
Performance
Activities
·
Oral
Reports
The
Team-Games-Tournament is one of the cooperative learning techniques that can be
used to improve students’ speaking ability. In this technique the students are
grouped in heterogeneous teams. According to Slavin (1995), the steps used for
the Team-Games-Tournament technique are as follows.
1. Introductory Class Presentation
In this phase, the researcher delivers the material
for the day to the students, i.e. the activities they will be doing plus giving
some motivation to ignite the students’ interest to study. This phase is
basically teacher-centered but only takes a very short time, around 5-10
minutes.
2. Team Division
In this step, the researcher divides the students
into several teams, each with 4 or 5 heterogeneous students which means that
the members of each team will be students with different abilities.
3. Games
Now, the teacher distributes the prepared task. The
student teams have to do the task which is presented in numbered pictures. The
task will be to tell the story in the pictures orally. Each team takes a turn
to present their story to the class.
4. Awards Group
Lastly, the researcher announces the best team i.e.
the team with the best score. This should motivate the other students in the
following meetings.
As
a teaching and learning technique, the Team-Game-Tournament has some advantages
as mentioned by Sdayu (2014, p. 66) since (a) the Team-Games-Tournament
technique initiates student-student verbal interactions, (b) it gives the
students in each team motivation to solve the problems of their task together,
(c) it encourages responsibility amongst students, (d) it increases motivation
and desire to learn amongst the teams (e) it motivates the students to compete
and (f) it creates a pleasant and enjoyable atmosphere in the class. However, Sdayu (ibid, p. 67) also adds that
the Team-GamesTournament also has some disadvantages in teaching-learning, such
as it is time consuming since the tournaments can take up a lot of time. Also
the absence of students’ during the
tournament sessions may disturb the whole members’ success in the tournament.
Thank
you for reading. Much love, Yevi.
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