SPEECH FUNCTIONS IN ENGLISH SPEAKING CLASSROOM OF THE SECOND GRADE STUDENTS AT SMA IT AL-FITYAN SCHOOL MEDAN

This study aimed at describing the use of speech functions and investigating the reasons of using the most dominant speech functions in English speaking classroom of the second grade students at SMA IT Al-Fityan School Medan. This study used descriptive qualitative design which involved one English teacher and 25 students of of the second grade at SMA IT Al-Fityan School Medan. The data were collected by observing the whole process of English speaking classrooms. The findings of this study showed that there were 9 types of speech functions used in the English speaking classroom namely; statement, question, command, initiating minor, acknowledgement, contradiction, answer, compliance and responding minor. It was also found that declarative statement by the teacher was the most dominant type of speech function used in the English speaking classroom since the percentage of teacher’s statement was 146 clauses or 97.9% and students’ was 3 clauses or 2.1% of the total utterances. The reasons of using statement in English speaking classroom were related to context of situation which was tenor in order to gain more power over the students to play teacher’s roles successfully. The findings of this study revealed that context of situation contributed to the study of foreign language teaching especially English speaking classroom.