Improving English Skills of Grade VIII Student Junior High School Plus Yanmu by Using Small Group Discussion

Abstract

The reason why the teacher at SMP Plus Yanmu NW Praya in English learning activities still use conventional methods in this case is the lecture method because teacher have difficulty in determining the right learning method in addi-tion to the large number of students, limited facilities and students come from di-verse backgrounds, so that English learning at SMP Plus Yanmu NW Praya runs monotonously and is only teacher-centric. The research approach used is classroom action research. The research sub-jects of grade VIII students totaling 30 students consisting of 15 male students and 15 female students, in English lessons using the small group discussion meth-od. From the data obtained from research on the application of small group dis-cussion learning methods in improving the English skills of students at SMP Plus Yanmu NW Praya, it was found that there was an increase in learning outcomes. It can be concluded that English learning using the small group discussion method in cycle I to cycle II has shown significant differences in results because as in the observations of teacher and students discussed before, researcher have implemented the learning implementation plan (Teaching Module) optimally, The improvement of student learning outcomes cannot be separated from the charac-teristics of the methods used by researcher, Which is able to move students to build their understanding Id pendently, this small group discussion method not only trains students' abilties but also trains students' mentality to communicate with fellow students and teacher, to explore a deeper understanding of the materi-al or topic discussed. Keyword: Small Group, English Skills, English Education.