THE SECOND YEAR STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ABILITY TO DESCRIBE TRADITIONAL FOOD AT ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF BUNG HATTA UNIVERSITY

Abstrak

INTRODUCTION This research aimed to know about the ability of the second year students’ speaking ability to describe traditional food at English Department of Bung Hatta University. Speaking is the way of people to express and communicate ideas to others orally. Speaking is one of the important skills that have to be mastered by students in learning English [1]. In learning Speaking skills, the students must concern the component of speaking skills. They are content pronunciation, grammar, fluency, vocabulary [2]. In speaking students can describe things such as traditional food. Traditional food is inherited food and has been entrenched in Indonesia. Traditional foods as food products that are eaten by ancestors to the present society [3]. METHOD This research belongs to descriptive research because the researcher wants to describe the second year students’ speaking ability to describe their traditional food [4]. The population of this research was the second year students at the English Department of Bung Hatta University. The number of sample was 36 students chosen by total sampling technique. The instrument of this research was speaking test to collect data. The researcher used this test because he wanted to know the second year students’ ability to describe their traditional food. Students were asked to describe their traditional food based on the topics given. To analyze the data, the researcher did ssthe steps as follows: The researcher and the second scorer calculated student’s score, the researcher counted the average score of two scorers, the researcher classified the students’ ability based on the criteria of Bung Hatta University, the researcher counted the number of students who got very good, good, moderate, and low ability, the researcher counted the percentage of students who had very good, good, moderate and low ability and the researcher described the research results and made a conclusion. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS The results of the research showed that the students had very good ability to describe their traditional food. It was supported by the fact that 27 students (75%) had very good ability to describe the traditional food. In detail 29 students (80,56%) had very good ability to describe content, 36 students (100%) had very good ability to pronounce words, 23 students (63,90%) had low ability to use correct grammar, 32 students (88,88%) had very good ability in fluency, 34 students (94,44%) had very good ability to use vocabulary. The result can be seen on the following table: No Aspects Percentage Students’ Ability 1 Describe Traditional food 75% Very Good 2 Describing Content 80,56% Very Good 3 Pronouncing Words 100% Very Good 4 Using Correct Grammar 63,90% Low 5 Fluency 88,88% Very Good 6 Vocabulary 94,44% Very Good CONCLUSSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS Based on the findings, the researcher drew conclusion that the second year students’ ability to describe traditional food at the English Department of Bung Hatta University was very good. Related to the conclusion, the researcher proposed some suggestions. To the students, the students need to maintain and to increase their speaking ability. To the teachers, they need to give more opportunities and make new innovations in order to maintain and to increase the students’ speaking skill. To the next researcher, he suggested to find out the causes of low ability of students in using correct grammar.