Improving the Students’ Speaking Competence through Debate

Oleh :
Imron Rosidi - S890906208 - Sekolah Pascasarjana

ABSTRAK The objective of the research is to examine whether or not Debate can improve the students’ speaking competence. Besides the research is also designed to study what happens when Debate is applied to improve the students’ speaking competence. The findings reveal that the program of improving the students’ speaking competence through debate is successful viewed from some dimensions. First, when doing speaking the students’ vocabulary is improved especially the dictions which are often used during the debate. Second, when delivering the speech in front of the class the students have higher motivation to speak English and to find as many references as possible dealing with the topic being presented. Besides, debate technique can improve the students’ critical thinking. Every time the students speak they try hard to support their argument with logical reasoning. Next, debate also improves the students’ mastery of grammar, body language, and voice control, time management, and logical sequence of ideas. The research findings of the study imply that Debate is very important in improving the students’ speaking competence. Therefore, it is recommended that (1) teachers of English have high commitment to be creative and innovative in the strategy or preparation and presentation materials which are contextual in accordance with the current issues happening in the society, (2) the teachers should remember that debate is only one of techniques to achieve the communicative competence of the students in English, so that the teachers should not measure their competence from their ability to debate but rather from their competence in using the language communicatively in their daily activities, (3) the teachers should facilitate the media for the students to practice speaking and one of them is through debate competition which can be held at schools regularly for the students at the schools. Keywords: Motion, arguments, affirmative, negative, adjudicator, theme line, team split, point of view.