Improving Students’ English Speaking Skill by Using Spongebob Squarepants Cartoon

Abstract

According to the Indonesian curriculum, which requires students to speak, speaking is now one of the essential abilities in learning English. The four English skills that students acquire in  class  include  speaking.  Additionally,  a  number  of  problems  come  up  throughout  the teaching   and   learning   process.   Speaking   difficulties   frequently   include   anxiety   while speaking  in  front  of  a  group  of  people,  a  limited  vocabulary  and  a  worry  about  making errors. This study aims to determine whether viewing SpongeBob SquarePants with English subtitles can improve students’ speaking ability. The participants of the study consisted of 9 students  from  junior  high  school  number  4  Bengkulu,  enrolled  in  the  9th  grade  for  the academic  year  2022/2023.  Purposive  sampling  was  used  to  choose  them  for  a  variety  of reasons. This study employed a pre-experimental methodology to investigate the impact of using the SpongeBob SquarePants cartoon on enhancing English-speaking ability. Pre-test and  post-test  measures  are  used  to  analyze  data in  this  design,  which  does  not  call  for  a control group  (Creswell &  Creswell,  2018).  As  a  consequence,  employing  a cartoon  had  a significant  impact  on  the  students’  speaking  ability.  It  may  be  inferred  that  the  research topic has been addressed and that it has been demonstrated that the application has been successful in enhancing the speaking skills of ninth-grade students. It was also found that cartoon  usage  application  can  be  a  center  for  language  teacher  techniques  in  learning English because of intense and meaningful language practice. In this study, students also do a lot of unconscious speaking skills in class because they think they are watching cartoon in a class. It shows that the students are easy to actively participate in learning that had made them used language and therefore learn it.