Monday 20 December 2010

Teaching Speaking through the Detective Game

Learning a foreign language has recently been acknowledged as a key to successfully deal with the advancement of science and technology. One of the foreign languages which interests people is English. In Indonesia, for instance, the practice of learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) is applied in both primary and secondary schools, not excluding Senior High Schools. In KTSP (Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan) curriculum, it is clearly stated that one of the objectives of teaching English in Senior High School is developing the ability to communicate in English, either in written or oral forms. In order to have a good fluency in using English in the pedagogical settings, English language learners are supposed to be capable of all the language skills. As Harmer (1991) mentions, the language skills are principally categorized into two components: receptive and productive skills. Listening and reading are generally considered to be the receptive skills, whereas speaking and writing belong to the framework of the productive skills. Unfortunately, the fact demonstrates that the students are quite difficult to improve their speaking ability because they are accustomed to using their native language in their daily life instead of using English. In the classroom, it is also evident that the students have the limited time to practice their speaking skills. Based on those conditions, we try to solve the problems by offering one teaching technique for speaking which is a language game. The reason why the writer proposes a language game is mainly because it can be a very useful teaching strategy for the effective and joyful learning. Furthermore, Steinberg (as cited in Arifin, 2003) emphasizes that games are a viable method to achieve many educational objectives, such as reinforcement, review, reward, relax, inhibition, reduction, attentiveness, retention and motivation. In this essay, the writer introduces a particular game named as “The Detective Game” as a method to enhance students’ ability in speaking. Ideally, there are three main stages which should be performed in this game: pre-/before, whilst-/during, and post-/after game activities.
To begin with, let us discuss the pre-game activities which are conducted in the speaking class. In this step of the game, students will have a sense of curiosity about the run of the game. There are four stages in this pre-game activity. Firstly, the teacher will introduce the background information about the game. In other words, the teacher lets the students know about the description of the detective game. As students can recognize, the detective role playing game is a kind of game which contains mysteries. In addition, it is actually created to solve mysteries by searching for clues, questioning suspects, and interviewing witnesses. Secondly, the teacher divides the students into several groups. Normally, each group consists of eight to ten members. It is purposely made as the effective way to accomplish the game fairly. Indeed, the teacher may pick the member of the group randomly. He/she can use a counting method to agglomerate the students in order to avoid the similar gender. Thirdly, the students form a group based on the number they get. For instance, a student who belongs to number 1 gathers with other students who get the same number. When the number of the students is already eight or ten, they soon make a circle in that group in order not to be interrupted by the other groups. Fourthly, the teacher clearly explains the rules of the game to the students. In delivering the instructions of the game, the teacher should use simple languages to convey what to do in the game. By elucidating the rules of the game, the students will obtain adequate information to play it smoothly.  Therefore, they will not misunderstand the portion of their roles in the game. By carrying out these steps, the students will have a great intention in playing the game.
Afterwards, we deal with the whilst-game activities. In this process, the students undergo several challenging activities during the game. This activity entirely consists of four steps. Firstly, the students determine the roles in their group, such as one member as a narrator, two members as the murderers, and the rest as the villagers or the detectives. In this step, each of the role players has special job divisions which indicate their own duties. A narrator, for instance, is functioned as someone who is responsible for telling the background information of a particular case, such as, an assassinate case. Different from the narrator, the villagers have a duty of accusing the murderer on their own forecast. Secondly, the students are introduced to the case of the detective game. The narrator makes the background overview of the murderer case. Then, he/she orders the students to close their eyes. When the students close their eyes, the narrator chooses two people to become the murderer or mafia. Subsequently, the narrator commands those two people to open their eyes to guess who are their friends and enemies. The enemies of those two people are the rest of the people in that group or they are called as the detectives. Then, the narrator instructs the murderers to close their eyes again to trick the detectives. After that, all of the people in the group should open their eyes to play their own roles. Thirdly, the students act as the detective to figure out the suspected one. Each person has his/her opportunity to choose one suspicion. Not only that, he/she should also give the reason why he/she chooses that particular person. After collecting the data, a person who obtains the most voters has the chance to give the alibi to the others. It is used to make sure the other’s choice whether they select the right person or not. Then, all of the members should vote again. The last person who earns the most accusation should be eliminated from the game and he/she should declare whether he/she is the murderer/mafia or not. If that person is not a murderer/mafia, one detective has no longer right to involve in the game. It is because the murderer/mafia will shoot him/her when the others fall asleep. Fourthly, the students settle on who will be the winner of the game. The game ends when there are only 2 people remaining. When one of them is the murderer/mafia, the winner is the murderer/mafia. On the other hand, if the rest two people are the detectives, the winner is the detective. Overall, these steps dominantly involve the students’ participation to fairly play the game.
Right after the students have completed the whilst-game activities, they are required to have closing activities named as the post-game activities. This last stage is a paramount step within the process of empowering students’ speaking ability through the detective game. There are at least three steps that must be well-accomplished after playing the game. Firstly, the teacher provides several times for the students to orally give reflections about the activities that they have dealt with. If the teacher lets his/her students give any kinds of reflections about what they can learn from the game, they will certainly have no barriers to speak up. However, the teacher might encounter a number of students who do not have enough courage to share their ideas or feelings to others. In this way, the teacher has to give several follow-up questions in order to make the students actively participate in the discussion by integrating their speaking skills. Furthermore, the teacher has to make sure that all of the students are given the equal spaces to say something on their mind. Expectedly, when the students give reflections on what they have achieved during the game, they can verbalize the image or picture of the detective game itself in the form of spoken language. As a result, their oral skills will be gradually improving. Secondly, the students are encouraged to utter their comments about the performances of each group. After all of the groups have taken turns to perform the game, the students will know which group plays the game perfectly. Possibly, the students will give judgments to determine the best performer of all. Hence, the teacher should lead them to express their free comments to the other groups using their fluency in speaking English. Of course, if the students are trained to criticize others, whether it is constructive or destructive, they will say everything to create acceptable comments for the other groups. Even, they will be able to evaluate the run of the game in the form of oral language. Thirdly, the students are assigned to list vocabularies related to the game that they have already played. Obviously, when the students play the detective game, there are lots of words that they might use, such as suspect, murder, mystery, etc. Potentially, the students will only use those sorts of words when the game is being presented in the classroom. Therefore, the teacher should assign them to list as many vocabularies as they can get from playing the detective game. It is aimed to enrich students’ vocabulary so that their style in speaking will not remain the same. They can, indeed, implement the new vocabularies in their daily conversation with their classmates. Most importantly, their speaking skill will be gradually constructed in a better way. In short, these final stages of synergizing the detective game in the speaking class will play a central role in enhancing students’ speaking competence.
In conclusion, as the rise of communicative approach, underlining the use of language as a medium of communication, the detective game becomes one of the techniques for increasing students’ speaking ability. The detective game can accommodate any level of students in Senior High Schools and provide them with interesting activities. Since students are usually worried in making mistakes, fearful of criticism or losing face, or simply shy of the attention that their speech attracts, the detective game, indeed, is neatly formulated in three prior stages: pre-/before, whilst-/during, and post-/after game activities. These stages help students develop their speaking skills in a pleasant atmosphere. As a recommendation, the teachers can apply this particular game whenever the students get bored with monotonous activities in the classroom. By utilizing this sort of game, the students will feel relaxed to absorb the lessons and of course their eagerness to speak in the class will be much stronger.
Sources: 
Harmer, Jeremy. 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Malaysia: Longman.
Kim, Lee Su. 1995. Creative Games for The Language Class. Forum Volume 33 No.1
      January-March 1995 page 35.
Written by
Muh. Khoirul Anwar
Bila Nastiti T.

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