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I. INTRODUCTION

This chapter describes the background of the problem which includes the reasons

for conducting the research in increasing student’s speaking skill by developing te

application of interactive multimedia program named Side By Side (SBS)

Software. This chapter also describes the formulation of the study, purposes of the

study, significant of the study, scope of the study, and definition of terms.

1.1. Background of the Study

In modern era, English is broadly spread out in every country as an international

language. As a foreign language, English is taught as a compulsory subject at

senior high schools in Indonesia. The aim of English teaching and learning is to

promote students’ communicative competence English. It is also one of the

subjects included in national examination. Therefore, senior high schoolstudents

are required to be able to master English.The main objective of teaching and

learning English as a foreign language at senior high school level in Indonesian

today curriculum implementation is mastering the four language skills.

In learning English at the classroom, senior high school students are required to

master the four skills i.e.; listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Among the

four skills taught at Senior high schools, speaking is one of difficult skills to build

in the classroom. Afisa (2015: 1) reveales that the students difficulties in speaking
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English are: (a) the student’s low vocabulary mastery resulted from their limited

knowledge of meaning vocabulary had led them difficulties in understanding the

conversaton. (b) the students had difficulties in pronouncing certain words

because, English words are different between pronounciation and writing, (c). The

students were still confusing in arranging words. Then there were still some

mistakes in their grammar. (d) the students were often afraid of speaking English

because they were worried of making mistakes. Afisa took the tenth grade

students as the sample of her research. She also stated that (2015:1) the students

were uncofident and nervous when the teachers were asking them. Whereas, as

what Srinivas Rao (2019: 6) says that speaking is the most important skill among

all the four language skills in order to communicate well in this global world.

Another researchers Bahadorfar and Omidvar (2014: 9) state that speaking is an

essential tool for communicating.

Since speaking is the most used skill when someone wants to pass on messages

and exchange information between each other, so speaking considered to be very

important. In line to, Baidawi (2016: 54), speaking is considered the most

important skill of language especially English because having ability to speak is

one of the evidence that someone has good proficiency of the language itself.

Therefore, it is very urgent to teach speaking to the students in order that they

master i well. Baidawi also recommended (2016:54) the teacher to design learning

activities as well as possible and it also must be supported by various teaching

media especially visual media such as pictures, realia, television, etc. So that, the
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learning activities is more various, interesting and motivates students to

participate actively.

Richards (2008: 19) also concerns that the mastery of speaking skills in English is

a priority for many second-languageor foreign-language learners. Accordingly,

learners often measure their success in learning English on how much they have

improved in their spoken language proficiency. As a student nowadays, she/he

can promote her/his ability to speak English well and fast. There are many free

and inexpensive application available in app stores that provide potential

opportunities to the academic world (Salih and Elsaid, 2018: 31).

The researcher will conduct this research in order to overcome the problems

related to the students’ speaking skills. Based on the observation and interview

that she conducted while teaching English in SMAN 7 Bandar Lampung, there

were some problems occurred in the English teaching and learning process.

First, speaking activities require students to speak, when the researcher did the

observation, she found that students did not speak much. When they speak

English, they make many mistakes in grammar and pronunciation. Their

vocabulary is very low. They usually switch their language to Bahasa Indonesia

due to limited vocabulary.

Second, based on the observation, the teacher does not provide the students with

engaging activities. The activities conducted during teaching and learning process

are not engaging. The teacher mostly explains during the teaching learning
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process.The activities are monotonous and not communicative. The students often

find themselves lost and bored when learning English because of this. The

researcher also interviewed some students about their feeling toward teaching

learning process especially English class, it was found that the teacher does not

use interactive multimedia in the teaching learning process. Istikharoh (2015: 2)

also found the main reasons or problems in her research: the teacher also has

difficulties in finding an approriate English interactive multimedia for the

students. Actually, the teacher can develop an English interactive multimedia by

themselves. Teacher can adopt and adapt the approriate the approriate English

learning materials from many sources and then make them to be an interactive

multimedia. There are many ways to make the approriate English learning

materials to be an interactive multimedia like Power Point slides and Adobe

Flash, but the teacher does not have enough time to develop it and she has

difficuties in developing the materials into interactive multimedia. She also

revealed that it is proved that the exsistence of language and computer laboratory

is not optimally used to help the teacher in the teaching and learning process.

To help the students improve their speaking skills, the teacher should implement

interesting, engaging and challenging activities. One of the various activities is

conducted by using interactive multimedia. Through this way, the students are

more able in producing the target language. They will experience speaking

English more fun. It is the need of the hour to integrate modern technologies to

upgrade the level of English teaching (Bahadorfar and Omidvar, 2014: 10).
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Based on the explanation of the problem found in the observation before, the

researcher conducted a study entitled “Developing Interactive Multimedia

Program through Side By Side (SBS) Software for Increasing Student’s Speaking

Skill at SMAN 7 Bandar Lampung”. This research is conducted to improve the

students’ English speaking skills and help the students achieve the goal of

learning English.

1.2. Limitation of the problem

It is impossible for the researcher to overcome all the problems in English

teaching and learning process in SMAN 7 Bandar Lampung, hence, the researcher

will only focus on the students’ English speaking skills. The researcher will focus

on what activities that will improve students’ English speaking skills.

Therefore, based on the background and identification of the problem, the

researcher will limit the problem in the study into developing interactive

multimedia program through Side By Side (SBS) Software for Increasing

Student’s Speaking Skill at SMAN 7 Bandar Lampung

1.3. Formulation of the Research Question

Based on the research background above, this research can be formulated in the

following question:

1. Is there any significant improvement by applying the use of interactive

Multimedia Program through Side by Side (SBS) software toward

students’ speaking skill?

2. What are the procedure of teaching learning process toward speaking

through Side by Side (SBS) software?

3. What are the responses of the students after learning speaking through

Side by Side (SBS) software?

1.4. Objectives of the Research

In relation to the statement of the problem above, the objectives of this research

are determined as follow:

1. To find out the suitable materials which meet the students’ needs to

improve their speaking skill.

2. To describe how use of Interactive Multimedia Program through Side

By Side (SBS) Software improve students’ speaking skill Student’s

Speaking Skill at SMAN 7 Bandar Lampung.

3. To investigate the students’ response after learning speaking through

Side By Side (SBS) software.

1.5. Uses of the Research

In accordance with the objective, this research will have the following uses:

1. Theoretically

The result of this research can be one of the references in speaking

learning theory.

2. Practically

a. The student
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By using Interactive Multimedia Program through Side By Side

(SBS) Softwarein teaching speaking, it is hoped that the students’

speaking skills can be improved, so that the students can

communicate using English more fluently, accurately, and

communicatively.

b. The Teacher

It is useful for the English teachers to improve their teaching

strategy, so that the students can comprehend the materials and get

involved in teaching and learning process, especially in speaking

activities. The English teachers are also expected to innovatively

create interesting speaking activities.

c. The Reader

It may give some information to the reader about teaching speaking

and how to improve students’ speaking skills in teaching and

learning process.

d. The Writer

She will get additional experience and knowledge of teaching and

learning in the classroom for the future. She also gets new

experience in doing research aand working together with other

people.
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1.6. Scope of the Research

The scope of this study will focus on on what activities that will improve students’

English speaking skills by using Side By Side (SBS) software. The data will be

taken at the tenth grade of SMAN 7 Bandar Lampung.

1.7. Definition of Terms

In order to avoid misunderstanding, the following terms are defined as follow:

1. Interactive Multimedia

Interactive multimedia or interactive media means the users can control,

combine and manipulate by themselves the digital devices in delivering the

electronic system into media, such as text, sound, video, computer graphics,

and animation.

2. Side By Side Software

Side by Side Interactive is an innovative video-based software program.

3. Speaking

Speaking is a productive skill in conveying the message from the speaker to

the listener.