What is Talking Chips Technique?

Article by Muhammad Rifa'i

What is Talking Chips Technique?

Kagan (2010, as cited in Syafryadin, 2013) explained that talking chips technique is a technique that is used in teaching speaking to make the students active in the class. In implementing this technique in the class, the students are divided into several groups and all members in each group are given chips. These chips are given to the students to be used every the student wants to speak. Every the student has spoken, he/she has to put the chips in the middle of the table. If the chips are over, he/she is not allowed to speak until all members’ chips are also over. The students will be given the chips again if the discussion in the class is not finished yet.

In addition, the definition of talking chips technique above, the writer tries to include more definition according to the other experts on this article. According to Gray, inspired by Reeves’s (2010, as cited in Herianto, 2013) explained that talking chips technique is a technique to make the students have opportunity to speak. More definition stated by Hilson (2010, as cited in Herianto, 2013) that elaborated that, “talking chips is the strategies guarantees equal participation in discussion groups. Each group member receives the same member of poker chips (or any other markers, such as index cards”. Talking chips technique definition is also defined by Turville (2008, as cited in Herianto, 2013) that stated that talking chips is a way to make the students’ participation equal in the class by using chips on each group discussion.

From the definition presented by several experts above, the writer comes to a conclusion that talking chips technique is a technique which is applied by the teacher in teaching speaking. This technique is very effective to be used by the teacher in the class because this technique can make all students taught in the class active in speaking activity. On the other words, this technique tries not to make the speaking activity in the class dominated by a student only.

Why Talking Chips Technique is appropriate in teaching speaking?

            In teaching activity, the teacher will gain successfulness towards the students when the teachers can know what technique can be appropriate and helpful for the students in the class. Students will never get improvement, and they will not pay more attention to the teacher and lesson when the teacher cannot decide and use the best and suitable technique to be used in the class. Especially in speaking ability, speaking ability is one of difficult skills in English that the students’ feel difficult to gain improvement. Knowing this problem, the teacher should be sensitive to decide and use the appropriate technique in the teaching activity.

In this article, the writer tries to take up talking chips technique to improve students’ speaking ability. The use and applying talking chips technique will be very helpful to improve students’ speaking ability because talking chips technique is one of teaching techniques that can make the students’ speaking skill improve. It can improve students’ speaking ability because when the teachers apply this technique in the class, the students’ are monitored to be active in the class, not only a student that dominates the speaking activity in the class. In addition, this technique forces the students to be active in the speaking activity in the class.

The main point of this technique usage is the teacher should know first how to apply this technique in the class because this technique has several procedures. The procedures that are on this technique will really help the students’ active to speak in the class activity. On the other words, the teacher’s role in implementing this technique is very important to gain successfulness whether to make the students monitored as long as the teaching activity or to gain good result in improving students’ speaking ability in the end of implementing the technique.

How to implement talking chips technique?

            In applying talking chips technique, teachers should know the steps and procedures to apply this technique in the teaching speaking. According to Kagan (1992, as cited in Herianto, 2013) that clarified that first, each person is given a number of markers. Second, each time a person wants to talk, a chip is placed in the center of the table. Third, when an individual’s chips are all in the center of the table, she/ he cannot talk again until everyone’s chips are all in the center. Last, the chips are then retrieved and tribute to begin again.

            Kagan (2010, as cited in Syafryadin, 2013) also clarified that first, the teacher gives a topic for the discussion. Second, student who wants to start the discussion, he/she should put the chip on the center of the group table. Third, when a member of the group has already used all chips, the other members on the group continues the discussion. Fourth, as long as the discussion is going on, accuracy and fluency of the students will be viewed. Besides, in evaluation, all students will also be assessed about the accuracy and the fluency.

            Knowing the steps and procedures of implementing talking chips technique, teachers do need to know all the steps in implementing this technique in the teaching speaking to gain successfulness. Students will really be helped to improve their speaking ability by using this technique.

Previous studies

            This article will be much better if the writer includes and states the previous studies related to the talking chips technique used in teaching speaking.

First study conducted by Syafryadin whose article entitled “The Use of Talking Chips Technique in Improving Students’ Speaking Achievement”. He implemented talking chips technique to the grade X in one of senior high schools in Bandung in year 2013. On the implementation of this technique, the researcher conducted three cycles in the class, and each cycle really gained good improvement towards students’ speaking ability. Before the researcher applied this technique to the students, the researcher first reviewed about present tense. Then researcher started applying this technique in the class. In every cycle, the students’ got improvement even though they still had problems on the speaking. The problems can be lessened from the first cycle to the third cycle. To show the last result of the researcher after implementing this technique, the writer wants to include the result in score on every cycle done in the class. In cycle one, the mean score of fluency was 61.1 and 62.81 for accuracy. In cycle 2, the mean score of students in fluency was 67.207 and accuracy was 68.05. In cycle 3, the mean score of fluency was 71.451 and accuracy was 74.69.

Second previous study conducted by Hardiyanti, Rochsantiningsih, and Setyaningsih whose article under title Using Talking Chips to Improve Students’ Participation in EFL Classroom. They implemented this technique in State Senior High School 5 Surakarta at class X-5 in the academic year of 2012/2013. The researchers implemented and finished the teaching activity in five (5) meetings. The researchers also included game activity in the class to make the students active and participate in the teaching speaking. To know the result of the implementation done by them, the writer tries to include the improvement gained by the students by comparing the pre-observation and post-observation on the fifth meeting toward the implementing talking chips technique. Natural desire to participate, this aspect improves from 54.2% to 83.3% on the post-observation. Confidence, this aspect improves from 63.3% to 88.3% on the post observation. Enjoying discussion, it improves from 68.3% to 90.8% on the post-observation. Spontaneity, it improves from 38.3% to 53.3% on the post-observation. Focus, it achieves from 68.3% to 82.5% on the post-observation. This result can be concluded that talking chips technique really helps the improvement of students’ speaking ability.