ENGLISH:
This study was conducted because the eighth-grade students at SMPN 1 Puding Besar had difficulties in speaking English, particularly in pronunciation and fluency. The objectives of this study were to find out how the One Minute Talk Technique was implemented to improve students’ speaking skills and to determine whether there was a significant difference between students who were taught using the One Minute Talk Technique and those who were not. This study used a quantitative approach with a quasi-experimental design. The participants consisted of 52 eighth-grade students, with 26 students in the experimental group (8C) and 26 students in the control group (8B). The data were collected through pre-test, post-test, and observation, and were analyzed using SPSS 26. The first finding showed that the implementation of the One Minute Talk Technique improved students’ classroom activities, as seen from the increases in cooperation from 45% to 76%, participation from 50% to 81%, and concept from 35% to 69%. The second finding showed that the experimental group’s mean score increased from 57.92 in the pre-test to 80.73 in the post-test, while the control group’s mean score increased from 58.38 to 67.54. The independent sample t-test showed that the t-obtained was 18.198, which was higher than the t-table value of 2.011, with a significance value of 0.000 < 0.05. Therefore, the null hypothesis was rejected and the alternative hypothesis was accepted. In conclusion, the One Minute Talk Technique was effective in improving the speaking skills of eighth-grade students at SMPN 1 Puding Besar, particularly in pronunciation and fluency.