THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DEBATE METHOD IN ACHIEVING COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

(A Survey Design Study of Students in Vocational High School)

A Research Proposal

Chika Aldila

1100534

ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION

INDONESIA UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

2014

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents 2

I. Introduction 3

I.1 Background 3

I.2 Purpose of the Study 5

I.3 Research Question 5

I.4 Hypothesis 5

I.5 Significance of the Study 6

I.6 Clarification of the Study 6

I.7 Clarification of Key Terms 6

I.8 Organization of the Paper 7

II. Literature Review 8

II.1Communication 8

II.2Communicative Competence 8

II.3Communicative Skill 10

II.4Communicative Language Teaching 11

II.5Debate 14

III. Research Methodology 16

III.1 Research Design 16

III.2 Research Site and Participants 16

III.3 Data Collection 17

III.4 Analysis 17

References 18

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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

English has been introduced to Indonesian students since elementary level. In

each degree of level, the goal of studying English is different. But, in accordance

with the National Ministry of Education in Kepmendiknas No. 22/2006 who

states that English is a tool for communicating both in written or oral, we may

conclude the main goal of study English in school is as a preparation of

communicating with other people, in any context, when English is required.

In Vocational High School level, students are specifically prepared for

acquiring a good communicative skill, both in native language and foreign

language, which in this case is English. The skill has to be acquired in order to

prepare them for real life communication. Students are expected to perform

certain functions as well, such as promising, inviting, promoting, and denying

within a social context (Wilkins, 1976 cited in Freeman, p. 121). It is not only

achieved with reading and writing, but also speaking and listening. The ability to

communicate in oral is highly needed by the students. But, with the methods that

are implemented in classroom activities nowadays, such as listening to some

records or completing some reading exercises, lots of teachers still doubt

themselves whether they can achieve the goal of making students able to

communicate both written or orally (Freeman, 2000, p. 121).

The goal of studying English in Vocational High School surely has a

correlation with the communicative competence stage in principle of teaching

(Brown, 1994). The use of language in communicate require more than linguistic

competence, it requires communicative competence—knowing when and how to

say to whom (Hymes, 1971 cited in Freeman, p. 121). The communicative

competence requires not only linguistic knowledge such as grammatical structure

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of a sentence, but also social knowledge in which students have to know how they

use a language according to specific situation or context (Freeman, 2000).

Some activities in enriching students’ ability in communication are conducted

in various ways. The activities and teaching method that are usually used in this

case is Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) Approach. The most

frequently used activities in CLT are games and role-playing (Littlewood, 2008).

With these kinds of activities, students are motivated and given opportunities to

practice speaking and communicating in different social context and in different

social roles (Freeman, 2000, p. 134).

Debate is a variation of the kind of role-playing activity which may be used

by teacher to achieve communicative competence principle in second language

learning (Littlewood, 2008). The content of the debate may be a real one of a

simulated one, based on the knowledge of the students in order to create a social

context activities—activities in which the contents are based on the real life

situation or event (Littlewood, 2008). Several previous studies have found the

benefit of using debate method in enhancing students’ speaking skill. One study

reveals that debate tends to encourage students to use their linguistic knowledge

in real communication context and situation, especially in oral communication; it

increases their ability and capability in speaking English (Mabrur, 2002). Nisbett

(2003) declares that:

“Debate is an important educational tool for learning analytic thinking skills and

for forcing self-conscious reflection on the validity of one’s ideas.”

Based on the consideration above, the present study tries to investigate

whether the debate method can be applied effectively in achieving communicative

competence of second language learning principle and it will be seen through

students’ responds based on questionnaires. This study is expected to give a brief

explanation and suggestion about debate method which can be used by teachers in

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encouraging students to achieve their communicative principle in learning

English.

1.2 Purpose of Study

This study is aimed to:

1. See students’ responds toward the implementation of debate method in

English classroom

2. See how effective debate method for students in achieving communicative

competence.

1.3 Research Question

The study is conducted to answer the problem formulated in the following

question:

1. How do students respond to the use of debate method in teaching and

learning process?

2. How effective is debate method for students in achieving communicative

competence?

1.4 Hypotheses

The hypotheses stated below are made related to this study. The research that

formulates hypothesis is the research in which use quantitative method, while the

quantitative research method is expected to find the hypothesis (Sugiyono; 2011,

p.64). The hypotheses formulated in the study are:

Ho : There is no significant difference between students’ communicative

competence level before using debate method and after using debate method.

H1 : There is significant difference between students’ communicative competence

level before using debate method and after using debate method.

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1.5 Significance of the Study

The present research is believed to have several significances for theoretical,

practical, and professional benefits.

1. Theoretical benefit

The research findings can be used as the contribution toward the research

about using debate method to help students in achieving communicative

competence level in Vocational High School.

2. Practical benefit

The research findings will be useful to teachers, students and also the readers

who are interested in teaching English especially for those in Vocational High

School environment.

3. Professional benefit

The research problem can help teachers to improve the quality of teaching,

students’ relationship, and to create an interesting classroom in communicative

English classroom.

1.6 Clarification of the Study

The study focuses on finding out how debate method can be used

effectively in English learning process or not based on the principle of

communicate competence by Brown (1994) and communicative language

teaching techniques by Freeman (2000). The analysis and observation will focus

on how the method can enhance the students’ communicative competence.

1.7 Clarification of the Key Terms

There are some terms in this study that need to be clarified. The definition of

them as follows:

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Effectiveness in this study means to measure the good result of the use of

debate method in achieving students’ communicative competence which

focuses on the speaking and listening skill.

Debate method in this study focuses on the classroom/education debate.

Study research is the study of.

1.8 Organization of the Paper

This research will be organized in three chapters. Each chapter has some sub-

topics which will help the reader to clarify and give detail on the information off

what the writer put into this research proposal. The paper of this study is

organized as follows:

Chapter I: Introduction

This chapter provides the information of the background of the study,

purposes of the study, hypotheses, significance of the study, clarification of

the study, clarification of key terms, and organization of the paper.

Chapter II: Literature Review

This chapter consists of literature review which functions as theorotical

foundation of the focus of the study; this part elaborates in detail theories

which are relevant to the study.

Chapter III: Research Methodology

This chapter will discuss the methodology in conducting this research. It

includes the design of the research, the site and participants, data collection

techniques, and data analysis technique that will be used to measure the

findings.

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CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Communication

Communication can be simply defined as a process of assign and convey

meanings through the exchange of ideas, thoughts, by verbal or non-verbal

methods such as gestures, and writing. The process of communication requires a

sender, the one who sends the message/information, and the receiver, the one

who receives the message/information (Kayi, 2006; Brown, 2001; Harmer, 2001;

Littlewood, 2008).

2.2 Communicative Competence

Communicative Competence (CC) is a term which was coined by Dell

Hymes in 1967 (Brown, 2000, p. 246). Research about CC was conducted in

1970s to distinguish between linguistic competence and communicative

competence in order to make a difference between knowledge about ‘language

form’ and knowledge that enables people to communicate functionally and

interactively (Hymes, 1967 cited in Brown, 2000, p. 246).

Based on Brown (2001), CC consists of some following components:

Organizational Competence: This competence covers grammatical and

discourse competence of functional aspect of communication.

Grammatical competence here encompasses the “knowledge of lexical

items and rules of morphology, syntax, sentence-grammar semantics,

and phonology” (Canale & Swain, 1980, p. 29; Brown, 2000, p. 247).

While discourse competence is more likely the knowledge of how

someone to connect sentences in order to make a meaningful whole

out of a series of utterances. Organizational Competence focuses on

the linguistic knowledge that someone has.

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Pragmatic Competence: This competence covers functional and

sociolinguistic competence of functional aspect of communication.

Functional competence is more likely an ability to accomplish

communication purposes in language, which has strong correlation

with sociolinguistic competence that is the knowledge of sociocultural

use of language and discourse (Brown, 2000, p. 247). In pragmatic

competence, these elements should come together in order to conduct

a proper communication process between individuals.

Strategic Competence: This competence described as “the verbal and

non-verbal communication strategies that may be called into action to

compensate for breakdowns in communication due to performance

variables or due to insufficient competence” (Canale & Swain, 1980

cited in Brown, 2000, p. 247). This competence is simply a condition

where someone has the ability to conduct a communication in respect

to the proper language forms use and cultural context in order to make

a coherent flow of communication process.

Psychomotor skills: Based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning,

psychomotor skill is a basis of human ability to use physical

movement, coordination, and use of the motor-skill capacities in order

to communicate (Morealle, 2012). It is simply the ability of someone

to communicate with not a verbal process only, but also a gesture to

support the meanings of sentences that is being delivered.

The four components of CC above have given a clear explanation that CC is the

stage of language mastery in which someone has both the linguistic knowledge

and sociocultural knowledge where the language is used and the strategy of how

to use a language not only in verbal but also in psychomotor way.

Nowadays, Communicative Competence is considered as the most

important linguistic principle of learning and teaching (Brown, 2001, p. 69). Brown

(2001) states that:

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“Given that communicative competence is the goal of a language

classroom, instruction needs to point toward all its components organizational,

pragmatic, strategic, and psychomotor. Communicative goals are best achieved

by giving due attention to language use and not just usage, to fluency and not

just accuracy, to authentic language and contexts, and to students’ eventual

need to apply classroom learning to previously unrehearsed contexts in the real

world.” (p. 69)

Based on the statement above and the definition of CC that has been

discussed in the previous paragraph, and in relation with the goal of teaching

English for Vocational High School that has been stated in the previous chapter,

CC becomes the highest stage in principle of language learning and teaching and

has to be achieved by those who are intended to use English for a real-life

communication. And this study is aimed to see whether debate method can be

used to achieve this competence, in order to develop students’ ability in

communicate, especially in speaking and listening.

2.3 Communicative Skill

The term Communicative Competence (CC) has been briefly explained in

the previous sub-chapter and it has provided the understanding of the reason in

considering CC for language learning and teaching process.

In order to achieve CC, the communicative skill has to be developed for

well. The focus of communicative skill in this study is speaking and listening.

Speaking can be said as the key of communication. Brown (2001) states that

“speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves

producing and receiving and processing information”. The words producing and

receiving is the main element of communication process, where producing refers

to speaking skill and receiving refers to listening skill. These two skills are very

important for Tourism major students who learn English as they will use English

mostly for oral communication with foreign tourists or business partners.

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With respect to the two communicative skills mentioned above, the focus

of this study is on debate method which will cover and enhance students’ ability

both in speaking and listening.

2.4 Communicative Language Teaching

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is best understood as an

approach, not a method (Brown, 2000, p. 266). Based on Freeman (2000), CLT

aims “broadly to apply the theoretical perspective of the Communicative

Approach (CLT) by making the Communicative Competence the goal of

language teaching and by acknowledging the interpendence of language and

communication” (p. 121). This approach beliefs that not only a re-examination of

what aspects to teach, but also a shift in emphasis in how to teach. It means that

teachers, instead of teaching the language knowledge to students, should also

teach students how to use the language in various situation and knowledge

(Harmer, 2001).

Nowadays, the Communicative Approach or Communicative Language

Teaching (CLT) have become the ‘umbrella’ terms to describe learning

sequences which aim to improve students ability to communicate, with several

activities that is specifically design to achieve the aim (Harmer, 2001, p. 86).

There are four characteristics of CLT (Brown, 2000, p. 266-267; Freeman,

2000, p. 129) that teachers have to remember in designing CLT-based activities:

a. Classroom goals are focused on all of the communicative components

(has been stated in the previous sub-chapter) and not restricted to

grammatical or linguistic competence.

b. Language techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic,

authentic, and functional use of language for meaningful purposes. It

focuses on the language that enables the user to deliver their purposes

clearly.

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c. Fluency and accuracy are seen as complementary principles underlying

communicative competence. At times fluency may have to take on

more importance than accuracy in order to deliver a meaningful

language.

d. Students have to use the language, productively and receptively, in

unrehearsed context.

Based on the four characteristics of CLT approach that has been stated above,

Harmer (2001) states several characteristics of communicative activities that

teachers may use in the English classroom:

A desire to communicate

A communicative purpose

Content not form

Variety of language

No teacher intervention

No materials control

In accordance with the characteristics of communicative activities that are

stated by Harmer, other characteristics are stated by Freeman (2001). She states

that communicative activities have three features in common (Johnson &

Morrow, 1981 cited in Freeman, 2001, p. 129): information gap, choice, and

feedback. Information gap means that there is an exchange of information from

the one who knows information to the one who does not know information. The

choice means that the student has choice of what he will say to another person;

exercises/activities which provide students with decided answers will not give

students choice in communicate authentically. Feedback means that students can

evaluate whether their purpose on communication is achieved or not based on the

information she receives from other students. Freeman also emphasizes that the

material that will be used in the classroom have to be authentic materials. It is

used to give students some opportunity to practice their communication ability in

facing the real-life conversation. By the activities, students are expected to feel

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more motivated to study foreign language since they will feel they are learning to

do something useful with the language (Freeman, 2001, p. 130).

Littlewood (2008) states a reason for using communicative activities and

implementing Communicative Language Teaching Approach in English

classroom:

“The learning activities are ‘pre-communicative’ rather than

‘communicative’. That is, they aim to equip the learner with some of the skills

required for communication, without actually requiring him to perform

communicative acts. The criterion for success is therefore not so much whether

he has managed to convey an intended meaning, but rather whether he has

produced an acceptable piece of language. However, by emphasizing the

communicative nature of this language, the activities also aim to help the learner

develop links with meaning that will later enable him to use this language for

communication purpose.” (p. 8).

Based on the characteristics that have been elaborated above, there are

some activities that teachers may use in communicative English classroom

(Freeman, 2000, p. 133-134): language games, picture strip story, role-play.

Between the three activities introduced by Freeman, role-plays are very important

in CLT because they give students an opportunity to practice communicating in

different social contexts and different social rules (2001, p. 134). It also gives

students more choices, because role plays can be done with a very structural way

or less structural way depends on the purpose of the activities. And there also

several types of role-play, kinds of role plays in social interaction activities are

debate and discussion (Littlewood, 2008).

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2.5 Debate

The focus on communicative activity that will be used in this study is

debate method. As stated in the previous chapter, debate can be used to enhance

students’ communication skill by carrying them to use the linguistic knowledge

into a functional competence in a structured or less-structured situation or context

of classroom activity (Littlewood, 2008).

Debate can be simply defined as a discussion between people or groups in

which they have different opinions toward one topic (ACT, www.actdu.org.au). It

is an excellent activity for language learning because “it engages students in a

variety of cognitive and linguistic ways” (Krieger, 2005).

“Debate can motivate students’ thinking, moreover if they must defend

their stand or opinion which is in contradiction with conviction themselves”

(Maryadi, 2008, p. 16 cited in Khoironiyah, 2011). In accordance with Maryadi’s

statement, Krieger also states that debate provide students with meaningful

listening, speaking, and writing practice, and also effective for developing

argumentation skills for persuasive speech and writing (2005).

Manning and Nakamura (2006) presents some benefits of using debate in

teaching English as Second/Foreign Language (Baker, 2009):

1. Debating ability is a valuable skill.

2. Debate utilizes useful English.

3. It is a unique way to teach grammar.

4. It develops critical thinking skills.

5. It introduces global issues.

6. It develops research skills.

Based on the benefits that has been mentioned above and the characteristics of

both communicative activities and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT),

debate is very compatible for student to achieve communicative competence. It

utilizes useful English, which means students use English purposefully while

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conducting communication in debate process, in which has correlation with the

pragmatic competence in communicative competence. It provides a unique way

to teach grammar, directly or indirectly, to students as they conducted the debate

process, which has correlation with linguistic competence. It is also introduces

global issues, which means that debate uses authentic materials in order to

prepare students to face real-life conversation in various situation and context.

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CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research Design

This study employs both surveys and experimental design. By employing

the quantitative method, this study will try to analyze whether the use of debate

method in achieving communicative competence is effective for students and

how students respond to the method.

3.2 Research Site and Respondents

This study will be conducted in a Vocational High School with Tourism

major in Bandung. The respondents are students of first or second grade of

tourism class.

3.3 Data Collection

The data are gathered through classroom observation and questionnaire as

follow:

a. Classroom Observation

The classroom observation will be to observe, analyze, and

conduct debate method in order to enriching students’ ability and

capability in communicative skills. The level of communicative

competence of each student will be seen through their performance in

communication before and after using debate method in English

classroom.

b. Questionnaire

The questionnaire will be given to students before and after the

implementation of debate method in the classroom. The questionnaire

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given before the implementation of debate method will function as a pre-

test form that test students’ communicative skill in written form in order

to see their communicative competence level; and as a respond measurer

of students toward the activities that they usually face in English

classroom with its impact towards their communicative skill. The

questionnaire which will be given to students after implementation of

debate method will function as a measurer of students’ responds toward

the effect of debate method in achieving communicative competence.

3.4 Data Analysis

The analysis of data collected will be conducted in several steps as

adapted from Quantitative Method in Creswell (2009b). The steps are elaborated

below.

Step 1. Collecting data through first questionnaires (the questionnaire given

before the implementation of debate method).

Step 2. Adjusting the result of first questionnaires into the implementation and

practice of debate method in English classroom.

Step 3. Conducting the debate activity and observe the students’ performance

during the process. It may be done twice or third during the study period.

Step 4. Collecting data through second questionnaire to see students’ responds

and the development of their communicative competence.

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