The First Year Students’ Speaking Ability in Telling Future Plans at English Department of Bung Hatta University. Thesis. English Department, Bung Hatta University.

Abstrak

Speaking is an important skill to measure learners’ ability in English,
especially in communication to each other (Wardani and Hermawati: 2016: 79).
Speaking is one of the English skills used to communicate each other orally.
Speaking is the heart of learning English (Rakhmania and Kusumaningrum:
2017:28). It means that speaking is the productive skill that can give a real result for
someone who is learning a foreign language, especially in English. Relating to this,
the purpose of this research was to describe the students’ speaking ability in telling
future plans.
The population of this research was the first year students at English
Department of Bung Hatta University. The total number of sample was 27 students.
They were chosen by using total sampling technique. The data were collected through
speaking test. To make the test reliable, the researcher used inter-rater technique. It
means that there were two scorers to check the students recording. It was found that
the correlation coefficient was 0.70. It means that the test was reliable. Then the test
was valid in terms of content validity.
The result of this research showed that the students’ speaking ability in telling
future plans at English Department of Bung Hatta University in general was
moderate. It was proved by the finding that 56% students had moderate ability. In
specific, the first year students’ speaking ability to express the content was very good.
It was proved by the finding that 74% students had very good ability. The first year
students’ speaking ability to pronounce words was very good. It was proved by the
finding that 100% students had very good ability. The first year students’ speaking
ability to use grammar was low. It was proved by the finding that 66% students had
low ability. The first year students’ speaking ability to choose vocabulary was low. It
was proved by the finding that 33% students had low ability. The ability of the first
year students’ speaking in telling future plans in term of fluency was low. It was
proved by the finding that 92% had low ability.
Referring to the results of this research, the researcher concluded that the
ability of the first year students’ speaking ability in telling future plans was moderate.
Dealing with the conclusion, lecturers are suggested to improve students’ speaking
ability, especially in fluency because they had low ability. The last, the researcher
suggested other researchers to find out the students’ difficulties in speaking fluently.
Key words : Speaking, Speaking Ability, Future Plans