THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE SMALL GROUP DISCUSSION IN DESCRIPTIVE TEXT IN IMPROVING SPEAKING ABILITY: A QUANTITATIVE STUDY ON SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS AT SMPN 14 SAMARINDA IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2023/2024

Abstract

Aulia Indira Choirunnisa, 2024. The Effectiveness of Using Small Group Discussion in Descriptive Text in Improving Speaking Ability: A Quantitative Study on Seventh Grade Students at SMPN 14 Samarinda in the Academic Year 2023/2024. Undergraduate Thesis. Supervisor: (1) Dr. H. Shafa, M.Pd (2) Dini Irawati, M.Pd.

Speaking is used in language acquisition to demonstrate students' competence in the language being learned. But a variety of obstacles could impact students' speaking abilities, including a lack of confidence, a limitation of vocabulary and grammar, and ineffective teaching methods.

The objectives of this research were to find out whether or not the effectiveness of Small Group Discussion improves speaking ability in descriptive text at the seventh grade of SMPN 14 Samarinda in the academic year 2023/2024 and to find out whether the Small Group Discussion helps students to enhance their speaking ability in descriptive text of seventh grade students at SMPN 14 Samarinda in the academic year 2023/2024.

The design of this research was quantitative research with a quasi-experimental design that compared the experimental and control classes. The sample consisted of seventh grade students from SMPN 14 Samarinda, especially in 7A and 7C. Data were collected in this research through observation, documentation, and speaking tests to describe the progress of the action. Then the data was collected from the test. The average score and class percentage were used as a representation of students' speaking improvement.

The findings of this research was there are increase of 0.35% in the experimental class (30 to 40.5) and an increase of 0.15% in the control class (26.06 to 29.94), which means that Small Group Discussion has a better and significant improvement compared to conventional learning. According to Mann-Whitney test, Asymp. significance value (2-tailed) was <0.001, which is less than α (0.005). It could be concluded that Ha accepted and Ho refused. It means Small Group Discussion had significant effect on students' speaking skill in the descriptive text at seventh grade students of SMPN 14 Samarinda.