Improving Students’ Speaking Skill Through Numbered Heads Together Technique at Accounting Department Economic Faculty Muhammadiyah University

Students who are now in university should have been able to speak English. But only few of them can speak and understand English. Actually, they have been studying English since they were in Kindergarten; it means that they have been writing, listening, reading, and speaking English a lot. In fact, they still cannot speak English, so that the researcher implemented Numbered Heads Together technique to improve students’ speaking skill. The problems of this research were: (1) To what extent can numbered heads together technique improve students’ speaking skill at semester two of Accounting Department of Economic Faculty of Muhammadiyah University in Pekanbaru?, and (2) What are the factors that influence students’ speaking skill at semester two of Accounting Department of Economic Faculty of Muhammadiyah University in Pekanbaru? The research was a class action research with 2 cycles. Each cycle consists of 4 meetings. The participants of the research were the first semester students of non regular class consisting of twenty four students with ten females and fourteen males. In carrying out this research, the researcher was helped by a collaborator to gather data from lecturer and students’ observation checklist, field notes, test, and interview. The result of cycle 1 showed that there was improvement in students’ speaking skill as 10.24%. While in cycle 2 there was 9.61% improvement of students’ speaking skill. Besides, in implementing the technique the students were quite active talking in their groups and they shared each other. By giving them more time and chance to practice, they were motivated to speak English. From the research, it could be concluded that Numbered heads together could improve students’ speaking skill. Group mates’ contribution, and more time and chance to practice were the factors influencing students’ speaking skill.