TABOO GAME

THE EFFECT OF USING TABOO GAME TO IMPROVE SPEAKING ABILITY OF TENTH GRADERS IN SMKN 2 MAGETAN

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1. Background of the Study
English Lesson in Vocational High School is put in adaptive Lesson which has a purpose on giving knowledge to the students to be able to communicate in English based on their skill program orally or written. Besides, English Lesson in Vocational High School should provide the students to be able to communicate in daily life and to develop communication in higher level (Standar Isi, 2006). Communication in daily life is related to the speaking ability. Therefore, students are expected to communicate orally in certain kinds of discourse. Speaking as the oral performance allows vocational school students to communicate in English fluently, accurately and confidently in many useful situations in work places as well as in society. Moreover, mastering oral skill is required by students to be proffesional employees or entrepreneurs.
In fact, acquiring speaking ability in the first year of Vocational High School is quite difficult. For example, in SMKN 2 Magetan, the speaking ability of tenth graders is below the average as shown by their English scores. There are some factors that influence students in learning English, especially spaeking ability. The first year in Vocational High School is a transition period from Junior High School. The materials are quite different because since those are customized to be suitable with any vocational context. Another factor is the way of teaching. Since teachers use conventional way of teaching, the activity may not vary so that students are less motivated and getting bored. The speaking activity is dominated by doing the exercises in the textbook, for instance, complete the blank dialogues, rearrange jumbled dialogues, and limited time to perform dialogues. Those kinds of activity do not give chances for students to actively use English in the class.
There are some internal factors that cause students do not practice English and be passive in the classroom. Thoe are lack of vocabulary, difficult in pronouncing words correctly, low ability in grammar, low motivation and self-confidence. Tenth graders in SMKN 2 Magetan still have limited amount of vocabulary since they will get new English vocabularies related to the vocation. They rarely practice to use any English words in the class since they have difficulty in pronouncing words correctly. The ability in grammar influences students’spoken ability since they can not produce sentences which are grammatically correct. Consequently, they are not confident and afraid of making mistakes in speaking. The other factor is students’ low motivation and self-confidence in speaking. The physical barriers could not be overcomed while they practice speaking. Therefore, they are not fully participated in the classroom.
Based on those problems, games can be used in teaching speaking. A language game can be an alternative way which is low anxiety so that student can be relax when learning English. Taboo game can be used to overcome the problems in speaking. Apart from being an enjoyable game, Taboo gives chance to practice speaking (Cervantes, 2009). This game helps students to speak and engages students in the activities. Since Taboo provides fun and excitement to the learning process, students can be relax when practice English. It can be used to low the anxiety. It can liven up the classroom so that students can be more active. This game is flexible since it can be modified to suit with the materials and students’ needs.
2. Research Question
Is there any difference between students who are taught by using Taboo game and those who are taught without using Taboo game?
3. Objective of the Study
To find out whether there is significant difference between students who are taught by using Taboo game and those who are not taught by using Taboo game.
4. Directional Hypothesis
Students who are taught by using Taboo Game will score higher than those who are taught without using Taboo Game.
5. Scope and Limitation
The scope of this study is applying Taboo game to improve tenth graders’ speaking ability in SMK Negeri 2 Magetan. This study is limited to tenth graders of Multimedia and focuses on speaking ability of describing things in the classroom.
6. Definition of Key Terms
Taboo Games : A word guessing game made by the teacher where the partners guess the keyword on the card without using the keyword itself or additional words (taboo words) listed on the card.
Improve : to make a progress from one condition into better condition
Speaking : an ability to use a language actively to express meanings in a form of dialogue about describing things in the classroom.







CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED STUDY
1. The nature of Speaking
Speaking is the oral mode of communication where the speaker gives information to the listener so that the listener gets the meaning. As stated by Cameron (2001:40), speaking is the active use of language to express meanings so that other people can make sense of them. Speaking skill is more difficult than it seems at first. It involves more than just pronouncing words. According to SIL International (1999), there are three kinds of speaking situations, they are interactive, partially interactive, and non-interactive (SIL International, 1999).
 Interactive
The interactive speaking includes face-to-face conversation and telephone calls where people are listening and speaking. The listener has chance to ask for clarification, repetition, or slower the speech from the speaker.
 Partially interactive
Some situations are partially interactive such as giving a speech directly to the audience. The audience will not interupt the speaker. The speaker can see and judge from the expressions and body language whether the audience understood or not.
 Non-interactive
Few speaking situations which may be totally non-interactive such as recording a speech for radio broadcast.

2. Teaching Speaking
The oral performance are strongly applied to conversation. Brown (2001) stated that there are six categories of oral production that students are expected to carry out in the classroom, they are imitative, intensive, responsive, transactional dialogue,interpersonal dialogue, and monologue (Brown, 2001).
 Imitative
Only a very limited time in speaking class may be spent by students to practice an intonation or a certain vowel sound. This imitation focuses on some particular element of language form, not for the purpose of meaningful interaction.
 Intensive
It includes any speaking performance that is designed to practice phonological or grammatical aspect of language. Intensive speaking can be self-initiated or pair work activity.
 Responsive
Responsive is a good students’ speech in the classroom. Replies are given to teacher or student-initiated questions or comments. However, the replies do not extend into dialogues.
 Transactional (Dialogue)
The goal of transactional language is to convey or exchange specific information. It is an extended form of responsive language, such as conversations.


 Interpersonal (dialogue)
Interpersonal language has a purpose of maintaining social relationships rather than for the transmission of facts and information. These conversations can involve some factors such as a casual register, colloquial language, emotionally charged language, slang, and so on.
 Extensive (Monologue)
Students at intermediate or advanced levels are expected to give extended monologues in the form of oral reports, summaries, or short speeches.
3. Language Games for Speaking
a. The definition of language games
Games not only function as time filling activities, but also bring some educational values that enable students to learn the language. Mc Cabe (1992) defined a language game as a spoken routine for two or more players, meant to be repeated many times and that such repetition will enable the children to communicate effectively since playing language games will help the children to develop language and thought (as cited in Chandra, 2008). In the other words, students who learn English through language games will develop their speaking ability to communicate with others. From the definition above, language games do not only provide supportive activities that can motivate the students to interact and communicate, but games can also create opportunities for students to acquire the language in a meaningful way.


b. The benefits of language games for speaking
Teaching speaking should be more interactive to keep students interested in the lesson. Games can be used to practice speaking in the classroom. Games are effective teaching tools which create opportunities for students to com¬municate in a relaxed, friendly, and coopera¬tive environment. According to Cross (1992) and Martin (2000), games reduce tension by adding fun and humor to lessons, and they add an element of competitiveness that moti¬vates students to participate (as cited in Cervantes, 2009). Cross (1992) argued that when students are absorbed by games, they acquire the essen¬tial vocabulary, grammar, and other aspects of English unconsciously because they are focused on the message and not the language itself (as cited in Cervantes, 2009). Importantly, games provide a perfect opportunity for the teacher to take the backseat and let the stu¬dents do the talking.
c. Suggestions to use language games
When games are used in the teaching and learning process, they should be the important parts of the activities. Games should not be a waste of time and must be essential for the learner’s development. Playing a game just for fun might have adverse effects on learning and discipline. According to Cervantes (2009), it is therefore wise for the English teacher to consider the following suggestions related to the use of games as a teaching tool:
1. Choose games that are suitable for the class need and the objective of the lesson.
2. Select games that will keep the inter¬est of the students and will allow many students to be active or working simultaneously.
3. Consider the size and location of the room when deciding whether a game should be a pair work game or a group game. Group games require more space and are likely to create more noise.
4. Determine the time alloment for the game, keeping in mind that the game shouldn’t be the only one activity for the class period.
5. Note students’ responses to each game played in the class, for example, whether they enjoyed it, found it challenging, found it appropriate, and would like to play it again.
6. Determine if language games can replace some routine activities, what the language games are expected to achieve, and how often language games can be effectively used (Cervantes, 2009, p.25).
4. Taboo Game
a. Playing Taboo Game
Taboo is such a kind of language game. The object of Taboo is for one person, the clue-giver, to give descrip¬tive clues to his or her or partner or group about a keyword printed on a card so that the partner or group can correctly guess the key¬word; however, the clue-giver must describe the keyword without using the word itself or any of the five taboo words listed on the card (Cervantes, 2009).
Materials:
 Taboo Cards which contain six words on each side – one in large, colored print at the top as the keyword, the rest in smaller black print beneath as the taboo words.
 A tray for holding the card.
 A Taboo box which contains taboo cards.
 A buzzer which is used as a censor when the clue giver uses the keyword or the taboo word.
 One minute hourglass as a timer
 A pencil and paper to write the score
Rules:
 The members of two opposing teams sit alternating around in a circle. The teams can be composed of two pairs (4 students total) or two groups of 3, 4, or 5 (6, 8, or 10 students total).
 The clue-giver of the first team tries to get teammates to guess as many keywords as possible in one minute without using the word itself or any of the five taboo words listed on the card. Words that rhyme with or are an abbreviation of a taboo word also are not allowed.
 If the clue-giver uses the keyword, a taboo word, or a part of a taboo word, a “censor” from the other team hits the buzzer. The clue-giver must then move on to the next word.
 Only speech is allowed to prompt one’s teammates; sounds, gestures, or draw-ings are prohibited.
 Teammates may shout as many guesses as possible, and there is no penalty for wrong guesses.
 Once a team member guesses the cor-rect word, the clue-giver goes to the next word. The object is to get as many keywords as possible within one min-ute. The playing team receives 1 point for every correct guess but loses 1 point for every taboo word that is spoken. The opposing team gets 1 point each time the clue-giver of the opposing team decides to skip a keyword and go on to the next keyword.
 When one minute expires, it is the other team’s turn to play.
b. The characteristics of Taboo game
Any type of game has some characteristics so that it can be used for instructional purpose. The game that is used in the teaching and learning process should include six game characteristics as suggested by Garris et al (2002), they are fantasy, rules/goals, sensory stimuli, challenge, mystery, and control. Since Taboo game is used in teaching speaking, this game also has the six game characteristics.
Fantasy is one of game characteristics since the activity involves imaginary world that is separated from real life (Garris et al., 2002). Fantasy allows players to interact in situations that are not part of normal experience. When students play Taboo game, their roles in the class are not as students who are studying, but the have different roles as players of the game. The roles are being the clue giver who gives description of the keyword and being the members who guess a many keywords as possible. Consequently, students’ attention will be focused when they become immersed in game activity. They can self-absorb and be interested in the material presented in the game. In brief, the material may be learned more readily when presented in an imagined context (Garris et al., 2002).
Although game activity is separated from real life, it has fixed space and time period with rules that govern the game play (Garris et al., 2002). Since the rules of a game describe the goal structure of the game, the rules should be clearly specified. And the goal of the game must be related to the learning objective. The goal of Taboo game is giving description of the keywords listed on the card. The keywords are the name of things in the classroom. Therefore, it is appropriate with the goal of the learning objective, that is students able to describe things in the classroom.
The imaginary world in a game allows the player to experience a distortion of perception that is not experienced in the real world (Garris et al., 2002). Sense of perception can be provided by sights and sounds that stimulate students’ senses. The Taboo cards may stimulate students’ visual sense, while the sound of the buzzer stimulates their audio sense. The sensory stimuli such as visual and audio senses in Taboo game can enhance students’ motivation to be engaged in the activity.
Games should have progressive difficulty levels so that students are challenged by the activities that are neither too easy nor too difficult to perform. Challenge is the game characteristics that engages students’ competitive and cooperative motivations. In Taboo game, the keywords provide different difficulty levels to be described since the related description words are include in the taboo words (the forbidden words to be used). Therefore, students will challenge to find another word to describe the keyword or make a sentence which defines the keyword. This game will be more challenge because the possibility of two opposing teams to obtain the goal of the game is uncertain. It depends on their ability to give description and guess the correct word. Then, the progress of their performance is shown by the scores they get.
The external feature of a game which encourages students’ curiousity is mystery. As Malone and Lepper (1987) noted that curiousity is one of the primary factors that drives learning (as cited in Cervantes, 2009). It includes sensory curiousity (evoked by novel sensation) and cognitive curiousity (a desire for knowledge). Taboo game provides this kind of characteristics since the keyword may be a mysterious word that should be guessed by the group who plays the game. The visual and the sound in playing Taboo can increase the curiousity which entails students’ senses. Their curiousity about the keyword will lead students to learn about a certain knowledge, it is describing things in the classroom.
A game has program control (the game instruction) and learner control in which students have the ability to regulate, direct or command something (Garris et al., 2002). Providing learner control in a game can improve motivation for greater learning. Taboo game evokes a sense of personal control when players are allowed to select strategies, manage the direction of the activity, and make decisions that directly affect outcomes. The clue giver directs the teammates to guess the keyword by selecting the best strategy to describe the words. The players have their own authority to manage the direction of the game in one minute given.
c. The implementation of Taboo Game in Teaching speaking
Taboo game is a commercial game, but the teacher can make his or her own game in order to make it more efficient. Before class, the teacher prepares the materials and creates several taboo cards. The words which are used in the game should be suitable with a certain topic that will be discussed. In the other word, the cards consist of vocabularies which are related to the lesson.
At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher explains the topic that will be disscused, explains about Taboo game that will be used in teaching speaking and also gives the rules of taboo game before students start to play. Then, divide the class into groups and arrange the seats so that the class is comfortable for playing in groups. Start the game and the duration of the game based on the time allotment that has been decided. The first two groups play the game, and each group has one minute to guess as many keywords as possible from the clue giver. The game goes on until all groups have chance to play the game.
The next activity after playing the game is debriefing. It helps students to understand the learning objectives through playing Taboo game. From the game, students get some vocabularies about the topic, they also practice forming sentences and it forces them to use words and structures they might otherwise not use (Amato, 2004). The practice through the game will lead students to make sentences in a form of dialogue. Students are asked to work in pairs to make a dialogue about describing things in the classroom and perform the dialogue in front of the class.


Chapter III
Research Methodology
1. Research Design
This research is experimental research. It is conducted to find out the effect of using Taboo Game to improve speaking ability of tenth graders in SMKN 2 Magetan. The experiment is the event planned and carried out by researcher to gather evidence relevant to the hypothesis (Ary, 1985, p. 247). The data is presented in quantitative manner and the hypothesis is tested by using t-test technique.
Furthermore, pretest-posttest design is considered to be the most appropriate design in experimental research. It includes 3 activities; administering the pretest, applying the treatment to the group, administering the post-test (Mc. Millan, 1992, p. 174). The result of the design is the comparison between scores in the pretest or the scores get before the treatment is done to the group and the scores gains after the treatment is applied to the group.
Table 3.1 pretest-posttest design
Group Pretest Treatment Posttest
A
B Y1
Y1 X
- Y2
Y2

A: the group of subjects which is given the treatment
B: the group of subjects which is not given the treatment
X: the independent variable or treatment in which Taboo Game is implemented
Y1: the pretest scores gained before the treatment
Y2: the posttest scores gained after the treatment
This research uses simple random sampling to get the sample. As the design is pretest-posttest design, the pretest is conducted after getting the sample of the research to measure the students’ speaking ability before the treatment is given. The treatment is the implementation of Taboo Game. The last is posttest which is done to measure the progress of the students’ speaking ability. After conducting those steps, the effect of using Taboo Game can be examined.
2. Research Variables
In this research, the researcher uses two variables. This is a must when conducting the experimental research in attempting to answer the research question and fitting to the research method. The independent variable is Taboo Game. Meanwhile, the dependent variable is the tenth graders’ speaking ability.
3. Population and Sample
Population is the group to which the research would like the result of the study to be generalized; it includes all individuals with certain specified characteristics (Mc Millan, 1992, p. 159). Moreover, Mc Millan (1993) also stated that sample is the group of the subject on which information is obtained (Mc Millan, 1993, p. 160). The population is the tenth graders of SMKN 2 Magetan. The sample of the research is X Multimedia. Simple random sampling is used to get the sample. The sample was X MMA as the independent variable and X MMD as the dependent variable.
4. Research instrument
Instrument is a tool used to collect data. Thus, the instrument of the research should be made as appropriate as possible in order to get the correct data. The instrument of this research was pretest and posttest. The instrument is in the form of speaking test. The students are asked to perform a dialogue in pairs by describing things in the classroom. By using this test type, students can express their ideas and speak English through dialogue so that they can improve the speaking ability.
Try out test is used to know the validity and reliability of test whether or not that test could be used to acquire the data. It is administered to any class which is not experimental and control group. After try out test is administered and the test is valid and reliable, this test will be used as pre-test and post-test.
4.1. Try out
Try out is conducted to know the validity and reliability of the test. The try out is administered to the group which is not both the treatment and control group, but the try out is administered to another class in which the grade of this group is the same with the grade of treatment and control group. The form of try out is a speaking test. This try out is administered in pre-test and post-test
The aim of the try out is to know the validity and reliability of the test. From the try out, students’ scores can be calculated by using statistic formula. From the try out as well, it can be stated that the test are valid because the test represents the objective of the test and reliable because after the computation using statistic calculation.
4.2 Pretest and Posttest
The test is pretest and posttest. the pretest is given to both groups to know students’ ability before the treatment. The posttest is also given to both groups to meaure the significant difference after the treatment. The test is speaking test that the students have to perform a dialogue in pairs by describing things in the classroom. they have 15 minutes to prepare the dialogue and 3 minute to perform it. Before the test is administered, the validity and reliability of the test must be measured whether or not the test measure what is supposed to measure.
4.2.1 Validity of the test
Content validity is used to know the validity of the test. As the purpose of the test is to measure students’ speaking ability in decribing things in the classroom, content validity will be the appropriate technique to measure the validity of the test.
The content is considered the most important and suitable for measuring the validity because of two reasons. First, in content validity one should determine whether the item of the test represents the objectives as stated in curriculum guides (Ary et al., 1985, p. 215). In this study, the content validity of the instrument is measured by relating the content of the instrument to Standar Isi in Indonesian curriculum. The instrument is in the form of speaking test which is administered to meaure the speaking ability of tenth graders in describing things in the classroom. It matches the standard competence and basic competence of Standar Isi in Indonesian curriculum.
The second reason for using content validity is because the content validity is important in evaluating achievement tests, and any achievement test to be used in a study must always be evaluated through content validity (Ary et al., 1985, p. 215). The speaking test is a kind of achievement test administered to measure the speaking ability of tenth graders in describing things in the classroom. Based on those two reasons, it can be concluded that the instrument is valid in terms of its content validity.

4.2.2 Reliability of the test
Reliability is the same rank of students’ score on repeated measurement (Johnson and Johnson, 2002, p. 54). To find the reliability of the test, interrater reliability is used to measure consistency of the test, which means that it will be the same no matter who scores the test.the procedure is administering test once then having different people to score the test and the last is computing relations between the tests of scores. From this result, the level of reliability is determined. To measure the reliability, correlation pearson product-moment correlation. The formula is as follows:

5. Data Collection Technique
The data of the study is the score of students’ speaking test. This score is collected through pretest and posttest in order to know the differences between the two groups that are taught using different way of teaching. Thee are the steps of conducting the study:
1. Taking population and sample. The population in this study is the tenth graders of SMKN 2 Magetan. From this population, there are two classes taken as the sample of the study through simple random sampling: XMMA and XMMD.
2. Preparing the instrument of the study. The instrument is in the form of speaking test which is ued to administer pretest and posttest. Before the instrument is administered, the try out is administered to know whether the instrument is valid and reliable.
3. Administering the pre-test. This pretest is conducted by the researcher to know the scores of subjects before the treatment is given to them. The pretest is also administered to the control group.
4. Giving treatment to the experimental group. Taboo game is implemented to teach speaking of describing thing in the classroom to tenth graders.
5. Administering the post test. The posttest was administered after the treatment given to the experimental and control group as well. The aim of administering the posttest was to know the progress of students’ability after the treatment was given to them.
The next step to collect the data is scoring the students result of the test by using modified analytical marking scale from Weir (1993) . There are fluency and appropriateness as parts of micri-linguistics in negotiating meaning. They are defined as score from the lowest to the highest, those are from 1 to 4. This following table is the modified analytical marking scale.
Modified Analytical Marking Scale from Weir (1993)
Appropriateness
1 Unable to function in the spoken language in performing dialogue about describing things
2 Able to operate in very limited capacity; responses characterized by inappropriateness in expressing dialogue about describing things in the classroom
3 Signs of developing attempts to response in dialogue about describing things in the classroom, but misunderstanding may occasionalyy arise through inappropriateness in performing dialogue about describing things in the classroom
4 Almost no errors in performing dialogue about describing things in the classroom, errors not significant enough to be likely to cause misunderstanding the description given.

Fluency
1 Utterances halting, fragmentary, and incoherent in performing dialogue about decribing things in the classroom
2 Utterances hesitant and often incomplete except in a few stock remarks and responses in describing things in the classroom given
Sentences of small chunks of indicators of negotiation meaning are for the most part disjointed and restricted in length
3 Signs of developing attempts at using of small chunks of indicators of negotiation meaning
Utterances may still be hesitant but are gaining in coherence, speed, and length
4 Utterances whilst occasionally hesitant, are characterized by groping, rephrasing and circumlocutions
Small chunks of indicators of negotiation meaning are used effectively as fillers

The last step of data collection is calculating students’ scores. After the data are calculated, the next is comparing the scores in the pretest and posttest of experimental and control group by using statistical analysis.
6. Data Analysis Technique
After the scores are collected from the pre test and post test, the scores are analyzed statistically by using a procedure of T-test to know whether there is a significant difference in the students’ speaking ability when using Taboo Game. These are four formulas used in calculating the scores by using t-test:
1. The T-ratio formula, used for analyzing the significant difference between the result of pretest and pottest in both group (Arikunto, 2006, p. 261)

Where:
t: the t-ratio
Md: Mean from the different pretest and posttest score (posttest-pretest).
xd: Deviation of each subject (d-Md)
: The sum deviation square
N: Number of subject
2. The t-test formula for analyzing the posttest scores of both control and experimental group (Arikunto, 2006, p. 306).

Where:
: The difference between two means (experimental and control group)
: Standard deviation square of posttest score in experimental group.
: Standard deviation square of posttest score in control group.
: The number of students in the experimental group
: The number of students in the control group
3. The t-test formula for analyzing the significant difference between pretest and posttest to both groups, experimental and control group (Arikunto, 2006, p. 311).

Where:
: means score of the experimental group
: means score of thecontrol group
: The sums of deviation square of the experimental group
: The sums of deviation square of the experimental group
4. The formula to find Degree of Freedom
After all the scores have been calculated by using the formula above, the degree of freedom is calculated by using this formula:

Where:
df: Degree of Freedom
N1: Number of individual in the experimental group
N2: Number of individual in the control group
When the degree of freedom has been calculated, the last step is consulting to the level of significance table. If the t-table is higher than the t-data, it can be concluded that there is a significant difference. On the other hand, if the t-data is higher than t-table, it can be concluded that the difference is not significant.















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