ABSTRACT
This final project is an action research. In this study, I limit the discussion by stating the following problem: “How effective is Audio-lingual Teaching Method used as an alternative method in improving the students’ speaking achievement?” The objective of the study is to explain the effectiveness of Audio-lingual Teaching as an alternative method in improving the students’ speaking achievement. It is expected that the result of the study will provide a deeper understanding about using Audio-lingual Teaching as teaching method for English teachers and also for the readers. There were four steps in conducting this action research: planning, acting, observing, and reflecting.
In order to achieve the objective of this study, the writer designed a quasi experiment using pre-test and post-test. The population of this study was the first year student of Junior high School of SMP Negeri 2 Pemalang. The sample of this study was class VII E. The number of the student was 40 students. There were four meetings during the experiment. Before the experiment was conducted, the students were given a pre-test. At the end of the experiment, the students were given a post-test.
The result of this study revealed that the post-test scores were better than the pre-test scores. It could be seen by comparing their means. The mean of the pre-test scores was 11.18 while the mean of the post-test scores was 19.25. The difference between the two means was 8.56.The result of applying one sample ttest revealed that the obtained value (15.03) was higher than the t-table value (2.02). It means that there is significant difference in grade of speaking test achieved by the students after they have been taught using Audio-lingual Teaching Method.
In line with the result, the writer suggests that the Audio-lingual teaching Method is one of the effective method as to increase students’ enthusiasm in learning English. This result hopefully would motivate teachers to use the Audiolingual Teaching Method in their classroom, especially when teaching speaking to first year students of junior high school.
