Currently, the English language competition after high school has gone through many adaptations since the COVID-19 pandemic. The competition, which was previously held face-to-face in each round, is now conducted online either through video submission (video submission) or through an application for a live competition. This is a challenge for schools to prepare adequate competition facilities and prepare appropriate training methods. On the other hand, the existence of this online competition provides wider opportunities to compete anywhere and can be followed by schools from various regions. On this basis, the English Literature Study Program organized the Community Service Program (PKM) for the target schools at SMAN 1 Kotagajah.
SMAN 1 Kotagajah is one of the schools with an English Club Extracurricular that is actively competing in Lampung Province. PKM English Literature Study Program focuses on improving English public speaking skills for English Club members. This activity was held on March 23 and 30 and was divided into three areas.
The first activity is newscasting training. The material for this activity was carried out by Suprayogi, M.Hum. and Dian Puspita, M.Li. assisted by students, namely Rindi Nur Octavia and Mufaza Husna. In this activity, 20 students learned about news reading techniques using parsing techniques and identifying “weak forms” in English vocabulary. Participants get the opportunity to read the news one by one and get feedback from the presenters. In the next session, participants learned how to narrate and read weather news such as terms about weather forecasts, assemble information and make the transition from one area to another.
The second activity is storytelling training. This material was presented by Dina Amelia, M. Hum., and Ely Nurmaily, M. Hum. and assisted by a student, namely Rekhsa Ramdani Azzahra. The presenters conveyed the criteria for interesting stories in the competition and how the assessment was made in the storytelling competition. The presenters also provide examples of stories. A total of 20 students received an evaluation session from the presenters.
The third activity was speech training, which was delivered by Akhyar Rido, Ph.D., and E. Ngestirosa E. W. K., M.A. In this session, speech training was also assisted by students, namely Dimas Ardian and Sahat Parulian Kaban. The activity begins with the basics of making speeches with comprehensive material followed by screening videos of good speech examples. In the next session, each student presented their artificial speech and received an evaluation from the presenters.
This activity was very well received by the English Club members of SMAN 1 Kotagajah, as well as Principal R. Surya Damayanti. M. Pd. This activity is a form of collaboration to enrich students’ understanding of English Public Speaking skills. This activity is routinely carried out every year before the pandemic, and thank God it can start again in 2022. The Head of the English Literature Study Program at the Indonesian Technocrat University said that “This activity is very beneficial for both parties. Lecturers of the English Literature Study Program can share their experiences of coaching students during competitions that can be useful in the school context.”
