ABSTRACT
There are many teaching techniques to make the students interested in studying and practicing English. Teachers should motivate and encourage the students with interesting activities. For example, they can improve students’ speaking skill in transactional and interpersonal conversations by using role play.
The population in this study was the grade VIII of SMP Negeri 2 Susukan Banjarnegara in the academic year of 2008/2009. The total number of students in the population was 240 students within six classes. I took one class that is the class VIII C to be the sample. It was taken randomly and there are 40 students.
The problems discussed in this study are “how is role play used in teaching transactional and interpersonal speaking skill to the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 2 Susukan Banjarnegara?” and “how can role play improve the students’ transactional and interpersonal speaking skill?” Therefore, the aims of the study are to describe how role play is used in teaching and how it can improve the students’ transactional and interpersonal speaking skill.
In solving the problems, I carried out an action research as the method of this research. I used two tests during the research, pre-test and post-test. The form of the test was direct speaking test by acting out dialogues. I also used observation sheet and questionnaire to support the data.
The result of the tests showed that there is improvement on students’ speaking ability. The result of the post-test 71% was higher than the result of the pre-test 46%. It means that the students’ achievement increased 25%, so the treatments were successful. Therefore, using role play as a technique helped the eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 2 Susukan Banjarnegara to improve their speaking.
