ISBN 978-602-18907-2-1 429 The 4th UAD TEFL International Conference, UAD Yogyakarta 2017 IMPROVING THE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING PERFORMANCE THROUGH THE IMPLEMENTATION OF TIERED ACTIVITIES Pradana Akbar Tanjung 1 , Fitri Hidayati 2 , Andyani Larasati 3 1 Yogyakarta Muhammadiyah University, Indonesia 1 fly.akbar@gmail.com 2 Yogyakarta Muhammadiyah University, Indonesia 2 fitrihidayati5@gmail.com 3 Yogyakarta Muhammadiyah University, Indonesia 3 andyani.larasati@gmail.com Abstract This study aims at implementing differentiated instruction in the form of tiered activities to the students of Government Study Program, Faculty of Social and Political Studies, Yogyakarta Muhammadiyah University. There are three objectives in this study; 1) to give contribution in improving students’ speaking performance and to solve the problems that the students have in terms of their readiness in the selected Free Conversation class, 2) to provide new activities which can be used as a consideration to evaluate the current material provided by the institution, 3) to provide related language instructors new insight and experience in applying a certain kind of approach, that is the use of differentiated instruction through tiered activities. 19 students from Class IP A2 who were taking the Free Conversation class were the participants of this study. The study was started by conducting observation, pre-test, and need analysis. Then, it was followed by the implementation and post-test. To measure the success of this study, pre-test and post-test scores were compared. The result indicated that the implementation of the tiered activities in Free Conversation class helped to improve the students’ speaking performance. Keywords: differentiated instruction, tiered activities, free conversation 1. INTRODUCTION The curriculum of the English language learning in Yogyakarta Muhammadiyah University, a private university in Indonesia, requires the students to excel in their speaking skills as speaking is one of the language skills which must be mastered by the English language learners. Speaking is considered as one of the productive skills or active skills which demand the students to be able to use the language as a means of communication. It is a productive skill that can be directly and empirically observed, the observations are invariably covered by the accuracy and effectiveness of the learners’ listening skill (Brown 2004). According to Richards (2008), the mastery of speaking skill in English is a priority for many second-language or foreign-language learners. Consequently, learners often evaluate their success in language learning as well as the effectiveness of their English course on the basis of how much they feel they have improved in their spoken language proficiency. In addition to this, Thornbury (2005) adds that speaking is part of learners’ daily life. It shows that speaking is actually close to the learners. However, the speaking mastery in Yogyakarta Muhammadiyah University is still far from being satisfactory, particularly the speaking mastery of those who are in the Free Conversation class. Being a transition class from the level-based course, Free Conversation class experienced the disparity of the speaking skill mastery of the students. Some of the students already had good speaking mastery. Meanwhile,