Background of this study is an effort to know which technique is suitable to use in teaching speaking. Indonesian students who have learned English for several years are still can not communicate using English. So the researcher thought that there should be a solution to cope with that problem. The researcher tried to use role play as a technique to improve students’ speaking skill especially in transactional and interpersonal text.

This study is about the use of role play as technique/method to improve student’s speaking skill in transactional and interpersonal text of the eighth grade students of Madrasah Tsanawiyah Negeri Kendal in the 2009/2010 academic year. The statement of the problem in this study is; is role play effective for the eighth grade students of MTs Negeri kendal to improve speaking skill in transactional and interpersonal text? The objective of the study is to find out whether or not role play is effective for the eighth grade students’ of MTs Negeri Kendal in 2009/2010 academic year to improve speaking skill in transactional and interpersonal text.

The population of the research was the eighth grade students of MTs Negeri Kendal. The research methodology was an experimental research, which conducted in two classes; the experimental group (VIII A) and control group (VIII B) as sample. The VIII A was taught by using role play, while the VIII B was taught without role play (Direct Method). The writer gave speaking test to gather the data. The test had been tried out to find out the validity, reliability, difficulty level, and discriminating power before it was used to gather the data. The formula that was used to analyze the data was t-test. It was used to determine whether or not there was a significance difference between students’ score in experimental group and students’ score in control group.

After the data had been collected by using test, it was found that t-test was (5.191), whereas the t-table was (1.66) for a = 5%. The t-test score was higher than the t-table (5.191 > 1.66). It was meant that Ha was accepted while Ho was rejected. Since t-test score was higher than the t-table, role play was effective technique/method in improving students’ speaking skill in Madrasah Tsanawiyah Negeri Kendal.