Utilizing Classroom Action Research in Indonesian Tertiary Students’ English Speaking Class

Proficiency in productive skills, most notably speaking, has been commonly regarded as a gauge of success in learning English. It is common to find many non-English department colleges include English speaking classes, apart from general, grammar-based lessons, in the list of their general basic subject. The purpose of this research is to improve the spontaneous English speech of students in an Indonesian tertiary institute in such English conversation class. The study was carried out using Classroom Action Research methodology, with 80 students as the subjects. The ‘plan’ stage comprised the exercise of Error Analysis methodology, based on the data of erroneous English speech of the students. The Corrective Feedback constituted the ‘act’ stage, wherein the writer deliberately gave different types of Corrective Feedback during and/or after the students’ spontaneous speech. In the ‘observe’ and ‘result’ stage, the writer concluded that teaching Basic Phonics, which is usually taught to children when learning to read, might be necessary to improve students’ pronunciation. Students were also receptive to CF from the teacher and could retain some feedback given by their peers. Based on the outcome of this study, it is suggested that Basic Phonics be included as part of English Conversation or English Speaking curriculum, even at tertiary level. At the same time, English teachers should not hesitate to provide Corrective Feedback to improve the speech of their students, as well as to encourage peer feedback to be given by friends.