Amedea Cathriona Maharia (2018), Students’ Perception toward Debating to Develop Speaking Skill in English Department Mulawarman University. Thesis. Mulawarman University. Faculty of Teacher Training and Education. Under the guidance of: (1) Drs. Didik Sucahyo,Dip., TESL., M.Pd (2) Syamdianita, M.Pd
The purposes of the study are (1) to know how students in fifth semester perceive about debate in speaking class (2) and how students in fifth semester believe debate could help them to improve their speaking skill. This research was conducted in English Department of Mulawarman University. The design of this study was mixed method study both quantitative and qualitative that it’s purposed to discover students’ perception about the use of debate in speaking class. There were 63 students in this research determined by purposive sampling from 2 classes, A and B of fifth semester 2017/2018 English Department Mulawarman University. There were 2 forms of instruments, questionnaire and interview. There were 16 items of questionnaire which had been used for this research. The data were taken from questionnaire by using 5 Likert-scale and ranked from the highest to the lowest mean score. The result of the mean score of questionnaire was 3.428, it meant students had positive perception toward the use of debate in speaking class. After calculating the mean score, researcher inivited students who had highest, average and lowest mean score to be interviewed. There were 7 questions of interview guide. Afterward researcher triangulated the data, researcher crosschecked the data related to data she acquired from questionnaire and interview. Eventually it would answer the research questions of the study. The first result of the study showed students had positive perception toward the use of debate in speaking class because of some benefits they acquired. They could practice the elements and components of speaking well and be more confident to deliver their ideas. The second result of the study showed that students’ perceived debate could help them to improve their speaking skill particularly the components of speaking (vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, fluency and comprehension) proven by the interview and questionnaire.
However, researcher still found some grammar errors when students were interviewed, even though they felt improved in their grammar. Even though students believe they had improvement in their speaking skill, what they believed were not always similar with their ability
Keyword: Classroom Debate, Speaking, Perception.