The Implementation of Numbered Heads Together (NHT) Technique in Teaching Speaking Skill at IX Grade of SMPN 7 Bukitinggi

This research was conducted based on problems found by researchers in the learning process about speaking skills using the Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique. Numbered Heads Together (NHT) is cooperative learning that focuses on influencing communication to help students face a problem by discussing their best ideas about the problem. NHT is a technique that teachers have implemented in the classroom to teach students speaking skills. Teachers must be clever in choosing learning methods or techniques that will be used in teaching because learning techniques are fundamental forms or concrete ways of implementing learning during the learning process to achieve learning goals. This research aims to determine how teachers implement the Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique in teaching students' speaking skills, whether it is in accordance with theory or not. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative research, which aims to describe how teachers implement the Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique in teaching speaking skills. Then, the instrument used in this research was an observation sheet. The teacher teaches Present Continuous 'What are you doing?' and asks students to sit in small groups using NHT to discuss assignments given by the teacher. The results of this research show that teachers do not fully implement the steps of the Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique in teaching speaking skills because the teacher has limited the time. Keywords: Implementation, Numbered Heads Together, Speaking skill.


INTRODUCTION
People can understand each other better if they speak the same language because language is as essential tool for human communication.English as a foreign language means the language is not used as a medium of instruction.No one knows how many languages are spoken worldwide because each country has its national language and thousands of dialects.In today's era, every country must speak its language and understand foreign languages.
One of the essential skills of English is speaking.Speaking is one of the critical and essential skills that must be practiced to communicate orally.Speaking is a tool that humans use to communicate.It is an activity in which we convey our views orally.Learning to talk would undoubtedly be beneficial to the learners because it is a widespread technique for communicating with others.(Amirullah et al., 2017) As cited in (Brown & Frazier, 2001), defines that speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving, and processing information.Speaking makes people be able to know what kinds of situation the world.People with an excellent ability to speak will be better at receiving and sending the information and messages to each other.According to (Fulcher, 2003), stated that speaking is the verbal use of language to communicate with others.
Students express their ideas, feelings, and desires to others through speaking.In addition, speaking is constructing and sharing meaning through verbal and nonverbal symbols in various contexts.Speaking activities are unsuccessful in class because many factors prevent students from speaking English with their friends.This is because of teachers' approaches, techniques or strategies do not attract students' learning interests.So far, the teaching and learning process has only focused on teachers delivering material without involving students.
According to (Robillos, 2023), the problems in teaching students speaking skills include the need for student self-confidence, a lack of motivation and interest in speaking, the lack of attractive learning models and methods, and the learning process being too teacher-centered.So, the teacher must be adept at choosing the right teaching methods to achieve the learning objectives.When the teacher selects effective methods and strategies, the class becomes engaging, and students thrive.
Many techniques, methods and strategies can be used in teaching speaking.However, not all of them can be used in teaching speaking.Here, the teacher must clever in choosing the right technique to achieve the learning objectives that have been designed before learning.One of the techniques that can be used in teaching speaking is Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique.This technique was developed by (Kagan, n.d.) that created using cooperative learning methodologies derived from constructivism theory and this cooperative learning technique uses numbers media to raise students' interest in learning to speak.Numbered Head Together (NHT) is a cooperative learning technique that can be applied in teaching speaking.With the help of their existing knowledge of one another, students are encouraged to work in groups to solve the problems or questions they have been given and to share what they already know with others.
Through this technique, students have an equal opportunity to answer the problem because the students have been numbered, and the number will be chosen randomly to answer the question.This technique also helped students to discuss and exchange opinions to answer questions that the teacher has given in their group.Here, the procedure of Numbered Head Together (NHT) technique; 1. Students are divided into 4-5 groups, then given numbers 1-5, 2. Teacher poses the materials (questions, issues, or problem to solve) that will be discussed by the students 3. Students are written their idea and discuss with their group 4. Teacher asks the question and call out the number randomly 5.All of the students who has the same number on their heads in each group stands up in front of the class 6. Students are answered for his/her group 7.The other students are given additional information or some suggestion 8.The teacher continues to the next question.
Based on the preliminary research by doing observation that conducted by the researcher twice.On September 5th and 6th 2023, at the IX grade of SMPN 7 Bukitinggi.The teacher has applied the Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique.The researcher saw from the accessories used by the students on their heads.When the researcher entered the class, the students were discussing with their respective groups to find out the answers to the questions given by the teacher.Moreover, before the students were divided into several groups, the teacher had just finished continuing last week's lesson about procedure text.
After the teacher divides students into six groups, students distribute assignments they must discuss with their friends.The teacher has prepared a procedure text, in which the teacher has cut out the steps, and then students are asked to compose the procedure text, starting with students determining their goal.For example, the teacher has cut out the steps to make lemon ice along with the goal, and then the teacher asks students to arrange the steps to make Pancake and Noodle and then stick them on the paper provided by discussing with their group.
After 10 minutes, the teacher randomly called the number in their heads, and the student with that number came to the front of the class and gave an answer based on the results they previously discussed using English.When class activities were in progress, the researcher found several problems in teaching speaking; Firstly, Firstly, the teacher cannot motivate students during learning activities to speak English, when students are asked to come forward but do not dare because they are made fun of by their friends, the teacher does not try to motivate students to dare to speak in front of the class so that the students only dare to answer on the spot he sat.Secondly, teachers cannot control learning activities when students are conducting discussion groups.The teacher has tried to put them in small groups so they can discuss with their friends, but during the question answering session the teacher cannot control the class because the teacher focuses on the group of students who are answering.
All the problems above were in accordance with the advantages of the Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique.Therefore, the researcher wanted to find out more about whether the Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique has been implemented according to theory or not.In reality, the researcher still found several problems with their speaking skills when the teacher still used learning methods that teachers often use for the teaching and learning process

RESEARCH METHOD
The design of this research was descriptive qualitative research.According to (Gay & Mills 2019), qualitative approach involves gathering, examining, and explaining in-depth narrative and visual (rather than numerical) information to understand a specific subject matter.Because it focuses on understanding social events from the perspective of a human participant.According to Mackey and Gass, qualitative research based on descriptive data that does not regularly use statistical procedures.Qualitative research also tends to examine things in their natural setting, seeking to understand or interpret phenomena in terms of the meaning people attach to them.(Creswell, 2007), stated that qualitative research is conducted in a natural setting, without manipulating the data, and that the researcher focuses on participants' views, asks general questions, and explores participants' experiences and provides rich narrative descriptions.Creswell stated that qualitative research is best suited to solve a research problem where one does not know the variables and must explore them.
This research was conducted at SMPN 7 Bukitinggi.In this research, the researcher took the English teacher at SMPN 7 Bukittinggi as the subject of the research.Also the students at the IX grade of SMPN 7 Bukittinggi, namely IX.3, IX.4,IX.5 and IX.6.Researcher took permission for conducting the research to take and bother teaching time of the participants.Permission obtained from the head of the school.The names of people who involved in this research An essential component of a research process is instrumentation.The instrument is the means by which information is obtained (Gay & Mills, 2019).The data of this research was collected by observation sheet.It helped the researcher to conduct the observation in the class.Generally, an observation sheet used in obtaining the information about the description of the implementation Numbered Head Together (NHT) technique in teaching speaking skill at the IX grade of SMPN 7 Bukittinggi values based on the situation during the observation.
Here, the researcher will observe the teaching and learning process of speaking in the class at the IX grade of SMPN 7 Bukittinggi.In order to address the study question, the researcher prepared the observation sheet.Observation sheet are worksheet that serve to observe and measure the level of succes or achievement of learning.Pay attention to the teacher implementing Numbered Head Together (NHT) technique in teaching learning speaking process, the researcher checked wheather the teacher did the activities on the observation sheet.

Result
This research data focused on the activities of the Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique that the teacher applied when the teacher taught speaking.The data were obtained by observation sheets conducted in four parallel classes as the main instrument for collecting the data.There were 30-33 students of IX grade of SMPN 7 Bukittinggi with the same English teacher.The data description focuses on the implementation of Numbered Heads Together (NHT) in teaching speaking skills.The data collection starts on 24th October and continues until 31st October 2023.The researcher conducted this research at IX.3, IX.4,IX.5, IX.6.
The procedure to collect the data in implementing the Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique in teaching speaking skills was obtained by doing the observation during four meetings.After collecting data by observing the class from the teacher opening the lesson until the teacher closes the lesson, it continues with the data reduction stage.Data reduction is carried out to help researchers summarize and focus on essential things.By eliminating unnecessary information, the researcher, in this case, condenses the data and places emphasis on aspects related to the research.Therefore, the researcher only focused on the steps for teaching the Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique in teaching speaking skill.The data from class was described below; In the first observation, the teacher taught 'What are you doing?(present continuous tense).Before the teacher divided students into several groups, the teacher explained the present continuous material first.The teacher opened the lesson by asking what is 'the present continuous tense?'.Then the teacher started by giving an example question, namely, 'What are we doing now?' then the students answered the teacher's question, 'We are learning.'The teacher tried to provoke students to make sentences in English word by word, starting with the word 'we,' after that 'to be' and then the verb 'learn.'Here, the teacher emphasizes that students pay attention to the verb part; the key to the present continuous is found in the verb, namely the verb added with -ing.The teacher had given many examples before the teacher went into the explanation of 'present continuous,' which is already in PowerPoint.
After the teacher had given several examples to students, the teacher began to explain the material already in PowerPoint.It started with the teacher explaining the definition of present continuous.Then, proceed with the formula or sentence pattern of the present continuous.Here, the teacher did not explain the whole subject because, in class VII, students have learned about the present tense.It is just that the teacher explains several differences in what 'to be' is used in the present continuous.Here, the teacher also gives examples of verbs added with -ing, such as studying, standing, writing, and speaking.
So, to make students understand the present continuous material that has been explained, the teacher asked the students to imagine the activities that their mother and father are doing at home.It did not take time for the teacher to immediately ask the students one by one at random by calling their names to ask what their mothers and fathers were doing at home.Some students answered questions very enthusiastically and immediately understood the sentence patterns.However, some students needed to learn the verbs they would convey, such as cooking, working, Etc.
1. Teacher divides the students into 4-5 groups, then gives numbers 1-5 After the teacher explained all the material related to the present continuous, the first step is dividing the students into six groups.Because there were 34 students in class IX.3 and four were absent.So the teacher divides the students into six groups; one group contains five students.Before the teacher divides them into six groups, the teacher asks students to name six countries or cities that they will use to name each group.The students sitting in the first row at the front end on the left start to say the names of the countries or cities they chose, namely London, continued with the student on his right choosing New York, then on to Tokyo, Bangkok, Jakarta, and finally Kuala Lumpur.After the six students mentioned these two countries and four cities, the seventh student started to mention the first country, namely, London, and the eighth student mentioned New York, and so on until the last student.After all students have said the names of the countries, students with the same country and cities name look for their respective groups.2. Teacher poses the material (questions, issues or problem to solve) After the students sit in their respective groups, the teacher distributes stiff paper on which the numbers one to six are written, which students must wear on their heads during learning activities or discussions.To ensure that students sit according to the name of their respective contry and cities, the teacher gives instructions; when the teacher calls the name of their group, students are asked to say 'Hi,' 'We are here,' and 'Hello.'Then, the teacher started calling out the names of the groups one by one, starting from Jakarta, London, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, New York, and Tokyo.After everyone is in their respective groups, the teacher calls each group representative from groups one (London) to six (Kuala Lumpur) to distribute assignments in the form of dialogues with missing some sentences.The teacher has prepared the dialogues previously, which the students will complete together with each group.Then, the teacher explained how to do it and tells the students to remember their respective numbers, and each student must prepare their answer because the teacher will call a random number, which will answer the teacher's question.Therefore, all students must discuss and look for the answers.

Students write the idea or their answer about the material that posed
The teacher begins to explain what the students will do with the dialogue.After all students understand what the teacher has explained, students start writing their ideas and opinions and discussing to find the correct answer.Then, the teacher goes around to ensure that each student in each group is discussing.After a while, the teacher called number three to ask what the group dialogue was about because the teacher differentiated the topic of each dialogue to ensure that all students were discussing it.No one was cheating from other groups.This way, each student can find answers to the dialogue in their respective groups.4. Each group discuss about the answers and teacher guided the group discussion Students discuss to find answers to the dialogue given in each group.To ensure that each student discusses and reads the dialogue in each group.The teacher asks each group with number two students about who the characters are in the dialogue and where each dialogue occurs.So that teachers know that all students are discussing and not just relying on one or two people or only relying on intelligent students.After the teacher ensures that all students are discussing, and goes around to guide students in the discussion.The teacher asks each group one by one whether they have finished discussing or not.If they have had a discussion, they are asked to say 'bingo.' 5. Teacher calls out the number randomly and asks the students to answers the question The teacher calls students number one and four in each group to answer the results they have discussed with each group.Students with numbers one and four began to answer and read the dialogue they had discussed previously.However, when students answered the results of their discussion, the teacher could not control the class because some groups had yet to complete the assignments given by the teacher; some groups were noisy and did not listen when other groups answered.This makes the class very unconducive.6. Teacher allows for other students to give additional answer, information or suggestion The teacher does not carry out this step because the teacher cannot control the students to listen to the other groups when they answer the results of the discussion they have worked on.So, the teacher immediately corrects when a student's answer is wrong or inappropriate without asking for information or suggestions from another group.

Teacher continues to the next questions
After all students numbered one and four in each group have had their turn to answer the results of their discussion, the teacher continues to the next task, namely: First, the teacher asks each student in the group to prepare questions with free subjects and verbs, which will then be asked to another group with the same number that the teacher will call randomly.Second, after each student prepares a question to ask another group, the teacher chooses student number two in each group to ask the previously prepared question to the other group.The first group to start first is the New York group.Then, student number two from the New York group chose the London group to ask questions prepared beforehand.The question is, "What is your father doing now?"A student with number two from the London group answered, "My father is teaching now."Then, the teacher asked the London group to choose 127 groups freely to ask questions that they had prepared beforehand.Then, the group chose the Kuala Lumpur group, with the question, "What is your mother doing now?".Student number two from the Kualalumpur group answered, "My mother is cooking now."Then the Kualalumpur group asked the Jakarta group, and Jakarta asked the Bangkok group.Finally, the Bangkok group asked the New York group.

Discussion
Numbered Heads Together (NHT) is a technique applied by English teachers in teaching speaking skills in classes IX.3, IX.4,IX.5, IX.6.In applying this technique, the teacher applied several steps in teaching the NHT technique in accordance with existing theory.Data collection was carried out through observation.Kotahri stated Observation becomes a scientific tool and the data collection method for the researcher when it serves a formulated research purpose, is systematically planned and recorded and is subjected to checks and controls on validity and reliability (Kothari, 2004) and it was done at IX.3, IX.4,IX.5, IX.6 of SMPN 7 Bukittinggi to answer the research question.
Numbered Heads Together is a technique applied by English teachers in teaching speaking skills in classes IX.3, IX.4,IX.5 and IX.6.In applying this technique, the teacher was applied several steps in teaching the NHT technique in accordance with existing theory.Data collection was carried out through observation.Kotahri stated Observation becomes a scientific tool and the data collection method for the researcher when it serves a formulated research purpose, is systematically planned and recorded and is subjected to checks and controls on validity and reliability (Kothari, 2004) and it was done at IX.3, IX.4,IX.5 and IX.6 of SMPN 7 Bukittinggi to answer the research question.
After describing and analyzing all the data, researchers found that Numbered Heads Together (NHT) could improve students' speaking abilities.Even though there are one or two steps that the teacher needs to take, this does not affect the student's speaking ability.This aligns with the findings of a study conducted by (Amirullah et al., 2017), which said that Numbered Head Together can improve students' speaking abilities.NHT can make a positive contribution to helping students develop their speaking skills.Using NHT, more students can talk because each student will be randomly appointed to answer the teacher's questions.Therefore, all students must discuss to know the answers to the questions asked by the teacher.
Further data analysis revealed that Numbered Heads Together (NHT) is a good technique for increasing student activity in the teaching and learning process, especially in student speaking.These findings align with a study conducted by (Ramadhan et al., 2017), which says that using the NHT technique makes students more active, enthusiastic and interested in learning to speak.
Furthermore, from observation in the four classes.The teacher has applied the Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique in teaching speaking in the class in the teaching speaking occur.However, some steps were ignored by the teacher.In the first step, the teacher divides students into four to five groups and then gives them numbers one to five.Researchers observed IX.3, IX.4,IX.5 and IX.6 of SMPN 7 Bukittinggi.Based on the classroom observations, teachers have implemented this first step in different ways in each class.
In the second step, the teacher poses the material, which can be (questions, problems, or problems that must be solved) that would be discussed by students.Based on field observations at IX.3 and IX.5 SMPN 7 Bukittinggi, the researcher found that teachers had implemented this step.However, in this step, the teacher gives different assignments in each class, which they would be discussed with their group.On the other hand, class IX.4 also implements the NHT technique, but the teacher skips one step.The step that the teacher still needs to take is that the teacher has not facilitated additional questions or input from other groups after the initial discussion.Instead, the class ends with students expressing their feelings regarding today's learning process using NHT.
The absence of steps five and seven in both classes may be attributed to the teachers' considerations for effective class management and the unique nature of the activities, such as individualized dialogues and pictures.Despite the deviations, both classes successfully engaged students in collaborative discussions, enhancing their understanding of the present continuous tense and creating a supportive learning environment.While the observed classes did not strictly adhere to all the theoretical steps of the NHT technique, they effectively utilized collaborative learning strategies, fostering comprehension and application of language concepts in a practical context.

CONCLUSION
Based on the findings, implementing the Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique in teaching speaking skills was observed in classes IX.3, IX.4,IX.5, and IX.6 at SMPN 7 Bukittinggi.The research question is, "How is the Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique applied in teaching speaking skills?" guided observations made during two class meetings.The findings revealed that although the NHT technique was implemented in all classes, there were variations in how teachers implemented the theoretical steps.In classes IX.3 and IX.5, the teacher follows the initial steps: dividing students into several groups and proposing material for discussion.However, there were deviations from the theoretical steps, mainly due to the absence of specific activities, such as students standing to answer questions or letting other groups contribute additional information.Apart from these variations, cooperative learning using the Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique effectively involves students more actively in discussions, encourages students to talk, and inspires them because it creates a fun and competitive environment.
In class IX.4, when the teacher implements the NHT technique, displays unique elements such as dialogue and pictures for each group.The class creates a supportive learning environment, emphasizing discussion and increasing students' understanding of the present continuous tense.On the other hand, in class IX.6 the teacher applies a different method by distributing numbered heads that have been coded individually to students, rather than forming groups.In conclusion, the teacher does some steps in implement Numbered Heads Together (NHT) technique in teaching speaking skill but she ignored 2 steps.The reason that the teacher had not applied the activity by the teacher is the teacher has limited the time in appliying the steps.
use of pseudonyms in order to protect the rights of participants.