Using TED Talks for EFL Learners to Boost Their Speaking Skill

Aulia Hanifah Qomar

Department of English Education, Muhammadiyah University of Metro, Jl. K.H. Dewantara, Metro, Indonesia

Keywords: Speaking Skill, EFL Learners, TED Talks

Abstract: We are as an English lecturer needs to bring technology in our EFL classroom. A technology is a good

solution to improve students’ English skill. One of the technologies that can be used in EFL classroom is a

TED talks. A TED talks is one of the solution to overcome the students’ problems especially in their

speaking skill. In this study, the researcher focused on implementing TED talks in her speaking class in

order to improve the students’ speaking skill. Besides, she wants to know the classroom situation when TED

talks is implemented in speaking class. This study is Classroom Action Research which is divided into 2

cycles. Based on the result of the study, there is improvement in students’ speaking skill through the use of

TED talks. It can be seen from the students’ score in cycle 1 (72) from pre-test (60). Then 78 in cycle 2

from 72 in cycle 1. The classroom situation can be described as follows: 1) the students were more

interested in speaking class; 2) the students were more active in giving feedback to other students; 3) the

students have many ideas to speaking in front of the class.

1 INTRODUCTION

Speaking is speech production that become a part

of daily life (Thornbury, 2005). Speaking is one of

the skills that should be mastered by the EFL

learners in the university. In fact, the EFL learners

got some difficulties in learning speaking. These

problems came from internal and external factors

(Dimyati, 1989). The internal factors came from

the students’ attitude, skill and motivation.

Meanwhile, external factors were from family,

environment and university. The problems faced

by the EFL learners related to the media used by

the lecturer. The media used was still monotonous

which is handbook of speaking subject. According

to Dudeney and Hockly (2007), there are ten

reasons to bring internet and technology into

classroom, some of them are:

1. Internet access is becoming increasingly

available to learners.

2. Young learners are growing up with

technologies, and it is natural and

integrated part of their lives- it is a way of

bringing the outside world into the classroom.

3. English as an international language is

being used in technologically mediated

context.

4. Technology, especially the internet,

presents new opportunities for authentic task

and materials, as well as access to a

wealth of ready-made ELT materials.

5. The internet offers excellent opportunities

for collaboration and communication among

learners who are geographically dispersed.

6. Technology is offered with published

materials such as course book and

resources book for teachers.

7. Learners increasingly expect language

schools to integrate technology into teaching.

8. Technology offers new ways for practicing

language and assessing performance.

9. Technology can not only be used in

the classroom, but also at home and even

public area.

10. Using a range of ICT tools can give

learners exposure to and practice in all of the

four main languages skills-listening,

speaking, reading, and writing.

430

Qomar, A.

Using TED Talks for EFL Learners to Boost Their Speaking Skill.

DOI: 10.5220/0008219500002284

In Proceedings of the 1st Bandung English Language Teaching International Conference (BELTIC 2018) - Developing ELT in the 21st Century, pages 430-433

ISBN: 978-989-758-416-9

Based on the statements above, the researcher

chooses one of the new media that can help the EFL

learners to solve the problems in learning speaking.

It was TED talks. TED is an acronym for

Technology, Entertainment and Design. TED Talks,

although typically fewer than 18 minutes long, pack

a punch: unique ideas presented with passion

(Windingland, 2014). TED talks is a series of public

speeches made by both notable and not so famous

people. The wide range of topics TED speeches

offer help stimulate the students’ inspirations and

innovative ideas (Li et al., 2016). The distinction

between this research and previous research is on

the implementing of TED talks to boost speaking

skill of EFL learners.

This research is trying to solve the problems

regarding the use of TED talks to boost the

students’ speaking skill and finding out the

improvement, and the students’ activities when

TED talks implemented in learning speaking.

2 METHODS

The research was administered to one class of the

fifth semester of English Education Study Program

in Muhammadiyah University of Metro. A

Classroom Action Research conducted consists of

four stages. Those are planning, acting, observing

and reflecting.

Kemmis and Tggart (as cited in Hopkins, 1993)

mention the procedure in action research:

a) Problem identification and planning activity

(pre-observation, prepare for the materials,

lesson plan, steps of the research, students’

attendance list, teaching tools, observation

sheet and test);

b) Implementation of the research (the lecturer

applies learning process using TED talks as

a media. In this step, the lecturer does all

designs of the lesson plan);

c) Observation (observation is the instrument

used to collect the data. The researcher

observes the students’ activity in learning

process. The observation results are recorded

in the observation sheet. The speaking

lecturers also participate in observing and

giving the suggestions);

d) Reflecting (after doing the teaching and

learning process using TED talk, the

researcher evaluates the learning process and

the learning result. The cycle will be stopped

when 75% students meet the English

standard.

In collecting the data, the researcher used test,

observation, diary, questionnaire and interview.

1) Test

Test is used to know the students’ speaking skill.

Brown (2003) explains that the test is a method to

measure the ability, knowledge. The purpose of the

test is to measure students' speaking skill. The test

consists of two tests: pre-test and post-test. Pre-test

will be given to students before learning using TED

talk. Post-tests will be given to students after

learning by using TED talk applied. After both of

these tests have done, researchers can see whether

there is an improvement of speaking skills after

learning using TED talk is given.

2) Observation

Burns (1999) explains that observation is the

main core of action research. Observation is the

activity of living things in terms of interpret

everything that happens using the senses or record

things using a scientific instrument. Researcher will

observe all student activities and situations that

occur during the learning process using TED talk as

a media.

3) Diary

According to Wallace et al. (2004), the diary is a

personal document, so there are no rules in writing

of the diary. Because of that, the researcher can

express all thoughts and feelings related to the

research. Diaries are appropriately used to extract

affective data. Diary is usually used in everyday

research, the result of the data can vary from day to

day. In this study, the researcher writes all the things

that happen in the classroom in the note starting

from the opening, the main activity and closing.

4) Questionnaire

Researcher will provide questionnaires before

and after using TED talk to EFL learners to get

information about their activities, opinions,

expectations, behaviour, and perceptions.

Researcher will ask students to fill the

questionnaire. Questionnaire has advantages that is

easier to implement, less time required than

interviews, and information that can be gathered

with more informants.

5) Interview

Interviews are personal meetings between

people because there are questions to ask and to

answer. Researcher will interview students about

their personal perceptions, experiences, opinions,

and ideas relating to action research in their

Using TED Talks for EFL Learners to Boost Their Speaking Skill

431

classroom. Burns (1999) states that interviews are

very popular and widely used as a tool for

collecting qualitative data. The researcher will

interview several students in the early and late

stages to analyse their point of view about the

learning process.

The data analysis techniques were used:

descriptive statistic and constant comparative

method. Hasan (2004) explains that descriptive

statistics are part of statistics that studies how data

collection and data presentation are so easy to

understand. Descriptive analysis only relates to the

matter of describing or providing information about

a data or circumstance. Descriptive statistics serves

to explain the state, symptoms, or problems. The

conclusions in descriptive statistics are only directed

to the existing data. In addition, the researcher also

used the verification technique. The technique of

verification is an essential step in the research

process. This conclusion is based on organizing the

information obtained in data analysis. The

conclusion of this research using inductive

technique, which is the technique of drawing

conclusions from the data that is specific to the

general conclusion.

3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This study describes the results of the research that

conducted on students of Muhammadiyah University

Metro. The purpose of this study is to identify

whether the use of TED talk as a media can boost

the EFL learners skill in speaking and to describe the

classroom activities when TED talk implemented in

speaking class. The research results will be

described in four sub stages: pre-research situation,

research, implementation, research results, and

discussion. Everything will be explained separately

and summarized in table form.

Based on Kemmis and Taggart (as cited in

Qomar, 2016), the procedure of action research

can be explained as follows:

a. Identifying problems and planning the

activities are:

1) Pre-observation toward the teaching

speaking class in Muhammadiyah

University of

Metro.

2) Preparing the material, making lesson plan,

and designing the steps in doing the action

3) Preparing list of students’ name and scoring

4) Preparing teaching aids

5) Preparing sheets for classroom observation

6) Preparing test

b. Implementation the Action

The lecturer applies the action of the teaching

speaking by using TED talks. In this step, the

researcher implements the activities written in the

lesson plan.

c. Observing

Observation is one of the instruments which are

used in collecting the data. The writer as the

researcher observes the students’ activities while

teaching and learning process occur. The result of

the observation is recorded on observation sheets as

the data.

d. Reflecting

After carrying out the teaching process, the

researcher recites the occurrence in classroom as the

reflection of the action. The researcher evaluates the

process and the result of the implementation of TED

talks in teaching English.

3.1 The Improvement of Students’

Speaking Performance

The use of TED talk had improved the students’

speaking. Referring to the result of the pre-test and

post-test, the students mean score was improved

4%. However, not all aspects of speaking were

constantly improved. The complete mean score was

presented in the table below.

Table 1: The Improvement of Students’ Speaking

Achievement

Pre-test

Post-test1

Post-test2

Based on Table 1, it can be concluded that the

students had a good achievement at the end of the

research. Their score was increasing from cycle 1 to

cycle 2. Furthermore, the number of the students

who passed the test increased up to 100% in the

post-test 2. It was indicated for each elements of

scoring.

3.2 The Classroom Activities

The result of observation showed that the students

were more active in speaking class when TED talks

was implemented. In addition, the result of

interview showed that the students were more

interested in following speaking class. The applying

of TED talk in students’ speaking skill had some

classroom activities. Those are some strengths and

weaknesses of TED talk.

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1. The strengths of TED talk

a) class situation is more life and fun;

b) there were interaction between student–

student and lecturer–student;

c) the students are more active and enjoy

the lesson;

d) students’ confidence are increased, they

are not shy again when performing forward

in the class;

e) students’ speaking proficiency were

improved.

2. The weaknesses of TED talk

a) The students were not controlled when

they used TED talk;

b) The students frequently opened another

sites for teaching and learning process;

c) The time management related to

the classroom situation;

d) Teaching and learning process became

noisy.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The final discussion in the previous chapter can be

drawn into two conclusions. Firstly, the use of TED

talk to teach speaking can boost students’ speaking

ideas. It is taken into account that the students had

positive progress in speaking skill as mentioned in

the research findings. 1) Students had right

intonation and stress in pronouncing sentences. 2)

Students used accurate structure in grammatical

accuracy. 3) Students used effective and appropriate

word choice. 4) Students were able to keep the

conversation going without hesitation, or

inappropriate pause, or repeating words. 5) Students

were well organized and clear ideas in interactive

communication.

Supporting the statement, the students had higher

mean score in the final post-test (post-test 2), which

was 78.00. This score was above the passing grade

which was settled at 65.00. The mean score had

gradually improved since the second and the first

post test. The students got 72.00 in post-test 1. The

result of pre-test was 60.00.

The second conclusion is the classroom

activities. It was related to the strengths and the

weaknesses of TED talk during the teaching and

learning process. Referring to the research findings,

the strengths of TED talk were: a) the class situation

more life and fun; b) there were interaction between

student–student and lecturer– student; c) the students

more active and enjoy the lesson; d) students’

confidence increase, they not shy again when

perform forward in the class; e) students’ speaking

proficiency improved.

Meanwhile, the weaknesses of TED talk during

the teaching and learning process were: The students

were not controlled when they used TED talk. The

students frequently opened another sites for teaching

and learning process. The time management related

to the classroom situation. Teaching and learning

process became crowded.

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