The Effectiveness of Think-Pair-Share Technique in Improving Students’ Speaking Ability and Interest

The objectives of this research were to find out:  1) whether or not Think-Pair-Share Technique is effective in improving students’ speaking ability of eighth grade students of SMPN 4 Panca Rijang and 2) whether or not the Eighth grade students of SMPN 4 Panca Rijang are interested in learning speaking English through Think-Pair-Share technique. This research applied quasi-experimental design. The population of this research was three classes of Eighth grade students of SMPN 4 Panca Rijang academic year 2014/2015 with the total population were 69 students. The sample of this research were VIII.1 (23 students) as the experimental group and VIII.3 (23 students) as the control group. This sample was taken by cluster sampling technique. The researcher applied Think-Pair-Share technique in the experimental group and conventional way in control group. This research applied two kinds of instruments were speaking test and questionnaire. Speaking test was used to obtain data of the students’ speaking ability and questionnaire was used to know the students’ interest in learning speaking English through Think-Pair-Share technique. The researcher found that there was a significant difference between achievement of the students who applied Think-Pair-Share technique and who did not applied Think-Pair-Share technique in speaking. It was proved by t-test of post-test (2.206) was higher than t-table (2.021), for a = 0.05  and  df = (44) and by the mean score of post-test in experimental group (68.57) was better than mean score of post-test in control group (56.35). And the researcher also found that the Eighth grade students of SMPN 4 Panca Rijang were interested in learning speaking English through Think-Pair-Share technique. It was proved by there were 22 students (95.7%) were interested in speaking English through Think-Pair-Share technique and the mean score of questionnaire was 83.22 and it included in interested category. Based on the data analysis, the researcher concluded that: 1) Think-Pair-Share Technique is effective in improving students’ speaking ability and 2) Eighth grade students of SMPN 4 Panca Rijang are interested in learning speaking English through Think-Pair-Share technique.