ARTIKEL ILMIAH STUDENTS PROBLEMS IN LEARNING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AT ONE PUBLIC JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN MUARO JAMBI

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1 ARTIKEL ILMIAH STUDENTS PROBLEMS IN LEARNING ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE AT ONE PUBLIC JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL IN MUARO JAMBI YULIANA LESTARI A1B PEMBIMBING: EDDY HARYANTO, M.Sc. Ed, MPP., Ph.D Rd. MUHAMMAD. Ali, S.Pd. M.Pd PROGRAM STUDI BAHASA INGGRIS JURUSAN PENDIDIKAN BAHASA DAN SENI FAKULTAS KEGURUAN DAN ILMU PENDIDIKAN UNIVERSITAS JAMBI 2015

2 Students Problems In Learning English As A Foreign Language At One Public Junior High School In Muaro Jambi Yuliana Lestari English Study Program, Jambi University Abstract This research aims to investigate students problems in learning English as a foreign language at one public junior high school in Muaro Jambi. The method that was used in this research was descriptive. The instruments of the research was questionnaire. The subject in this research were one hundred two students at eleventh grade for four classes.in order to investigate students problems in learning English as a foreign language at one public junior high school. The researcher took four classes of eleventh grade as participants. The data questionnaire was used in the form a close questionnaire. Close questionnaire contain 20 statements in which the responses were in four point scale. Point 1 represents Strongly Disagree (SD), point 2 represents Disagree (D), point 3 represents Agree (A), point 4 represents Strongly Agree (SA). The researcher used SPSS to calculate students problems from the collected questionnaire. To measure the internal reliability of the questionnaire, the researcher used Cronbach Alpha run by SPSS version The questionnaire had high reliability (α=0.906). Based on the analysis of statistical data processed through SPSS, it is found that students problems in speaking with mean score 3.09 is positive. Students problems in reading with mean score 3.09 is positive. Students problems in writing with mean score 3.00 is positive. Students problems in listening with mean score 3.03 is positive. Keyword: Students Problems, Learning English as a Foreign Language Introduction English is one of international language used in the world and make it important to be studied. In Indonesia, English has been taught as an important language. Many people in Indonesia introduce English to their children from kindergarden. Practically, English has four major basic skill to be studied. The four major basic skills are Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing. In learning English, students also learn about vocabulary, pronounciation, tense, etc. Which help them to be able in practice English in school and their daily life. However, there are some problems that have been faced by Indonesian students. Pronounciation using indonesian accent, difficult spelling, and the environment that not support them in learning English proficiency make English is being one of the hardest subject they have to face in the school. Hashemi (2001) describes some problems occur in learning English. First, English teacher are not well trained. In this case, based on the researcher observation in SMP Negeri 23 Muaro Jambi, the researcher found English teachers in this school usually used Indonesia language or their local language during teaching learning process. In another case, the teacher come to class and give some tasks without explain or practice English in the class. It makes the students hard to understand and practice English written or oral. Second problem is the student are lack of English foundation background. Not all of people in Indonesia know and using English in their daily life. So the students have limited access to train their English skill. Third, students have lack of confidence in practice English, especially in oral way. Indonesia has many different culture and dialect. In some case local dialect influence English pronounciation used by Indonesian students. They start to feeling shy to speak English and feeling affraid of making mistake in pronounce an English word. Their lack of vocabulary also influence their confidence. Problem in Speaking Skill In speaking most the students have problem in self confidence. According to Richard and Renandya (2002) there is difficulty for learner in speaking. It relates to students motivation in speaking. The student often feel confuse in saying something or arranging the words and also some students personality such as anxiety, emotion, and attitude. Ghrib (2002) said that the students problems in learning speaking contains of students linguistic knowledge; they are vocabulary and meaning, grammar and pronunciation problem. This condition greatly hindered the students in learning speaking since in learning this language skill, self confidence is very important. When the students learn to speak they have to believe themselves that they can speak. Brown (2000) said that learners belief that they indeed are fully capable of accomplishing a task is at least partially a factor in their eventual success in attaining the task. Problem in Reading Skill In reading the most common problem student is the problem in understanding text. The students usually found problems with the difficult word used in the text. This problem related to vocabulary and the other problems in answering the questions related to the text. The students have the problems in answering both explicit and implicit question, though actually finding explicit information is usually easier than finding implicit information. Students with reading problems lack many of the basic components of reading. Each new skill builds on the mastery of previously learned skills. Students with reading problems have difficulty decoding words and sentence. At a basic level, children recognize that letters represent the sounds of spoken words. Kharsen (1993) and Bamford (1998) in Brown (2000) make the case that extensive reading is a key to students gains in reading ability, linguistic competence, vocabulary, spelling, and writing.

3 Problem in Writing Skill Writing is a kind of writing activity in a letter form to communicate with others. It is the way to express an ideas, feelings, and experience in written language. However, writing letter is one of the most used, practically and inexpensive way to sending information. In writing, the most common problems that the students encountered is related to the vocabulary or diction, grammar, and mechanics. Blauensteiner (2000) said that in reading or writing teaching and learning process, one of factors that also influences is the topic. So teacher should not force a topic to students in which they are not interested. Problems in Listening Skill Listening is a communication skill that we use in everyday life, but it will be difficult to practice listening skills. In listening, commonly problem is faced by foreign students in listening skill is relate to their ability to understand the words or sentences deliver by the speaker. It could happen because the students lack of vocabulary and concentration. Based on University of Cambridge Counseling Service (2012) concentration depends of many things, one of them environment. In this case of subject of study, the most common problems that hampered them concentrate well in listening were related to classroom condition. Previous Research Warisa S (2014) has done a research to investigate students perception in learning English. Firstly students perception toward English conversation program. This research was focused to see students perception in speaking skill especially in conversation. The result of the study showed that students perception toward method use by their teacher was positive. Students perceived that method use by their teacher will be helpful if their teacher have various procedures and technique. Another research has been conducted by Budiarti (2014) this research was focused to see the students perception toward english teachers communication styles. The students perceived teacher communication styles from four dimensions. They are attentive style, impression style, relaxed style, and friendly style. Students of class 1 perceived that communication style that was dominant in their teacher was only attentive style. Meanwhile, students of class II perceived that communication styles that were performed by their teacher were impression style, relaxed style, attentive style, and friendly style. Moreover, the students perceived that impression style, relaxed style, contentious style, and dramatic style were not sufficiently performed by teacher of class 1. In other hand, teacher of class II did not sufficiently perform contentious style only. Actually, another communication styles were performed by both of teacher of class 1 and class II. But, those styles did not sufficiently appear. Research Design The design of this research is survey design. This research used quantitative to give description of what the students problems in learning English. According to Creswell (2012), to analyze students problems in quantitative research, the researcher would need descriptive statistic. It will be easy for the researcher to get the summary of the research by using mean score. The research used descriptive approach, because it intended to describe the students problems in learning English as a foreign language at one public junior high school at eighth grade of SMPN 23 Muaro Jambi. Population and Sample According to Sugiyono (2007) population is generalization zone which consist of object and subject which have specific quantities and characteristic. It means that population is all subject or object of this study. From definition above the population of this study is eighth grade students at SMP N 23 Muaro Jambi which has 4 classes. The total number of students those 4 classes is 102 students. The description of the student s distribution in each class is presented in table 1 bellow: Table 1. Number of population in VIII Grade Student in SMPN 23 Muaro Jambi Class Number of Population VIII A 26 VIII B 26 VIII C 25 VIII D 25 Total 102 Sample The participant of this research is the eighth grade students of SMP N 23 Muaro Jambi. The number of eight grades is 102 students from four classes. Based on the observation in the field, there were four clasess in eleventh grade of SMP Negeri 23 Muaro Jambi. Finally, the researcher used three clasess for the sample. Total the sample of this research is 77. Table 2. Number of sample in VIII Grade Student in SMPN 23 Muaro Jambi Class Number of Population VIII A 26 VIII B 26 VIII C 25 Total 77

4 Instrument of the Research Questionnaire According to wolf in Keeves (1988) a questionnaire is a self-report instrument used for gathering information about variables of interest to an investigator. It consists of a number of questions or items on paper that a respondent reads and answers. In collecting the data, the researcher used questionnaires containing 20 statements to get the information of the subjects. In this research, the researcher uses questionnaire as the instrument for collecting data. The researcher distributed questionnaire to the respondents to be filled by them. Close questionnaire used as instrument in collecting data. The purpose of the questionnaire is to identify students problems in learning English. A questionnaire with scaled items is constructed for this research. It consists of 20 structured questions which are related to students problems in learning English. Likerst scale was used in formulating the close questionnaire for students perception used four point scale Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree. The researcher will use Likert scale, according to Sugiyono (2008) Likerst scale is used for measuring the attitude, opinion, and perception of person or group of event or understanding of respondents about phenomena. In this research, the researcher will use Likert scale to measure the students problems in Learning English at SMP Negeri 23 Muaro Jambi. When using a Likert scale, the measured variable is translated into sub-variable, and then the sub-variable is translated into indicators that can be measured. Finally measurable indicator can be used as a starting point to create instrument item that form the questions or statement that need to be answered by respodents. Each answere is connected with form or support a statement that the attitude expressed in words as follows: Table 3. Positive and Negative statement of likert scale Positive statement Negative statement Strongly Agree (SA) = 4 Strongly Agree (SA) = 1 Agree (A) = 3 Agree (A) = 2 Disagree (D) = 2 Disagree (D) = 3 Strongly Disagree (SD) = 1 Strongly Disagre (SD) = 4 Table 4. Specification of the questionnaire statements Variable Components Number of Items Total Items Students problems Speaking 1,2,3,4,5 5 in learning English as Reading 6,7,8,9,10 5 a foreign language at Writing 11,12,13,14,15 5 SMP Negeri 23 Muaro Jambi Listening 16,17,18,19,20 5 Technique of Data Collection The data of the research was gained by using questionnaire. Here are some steps that had been done by the researcher in collecting the data: a. Ask permission to the school to conduct the research b. Distributing the questionnaire to respondent c. Giving the information about the purpose of this research to the respondents d. Distributing the questionnaire to the respondents of this research and the questionnaire to be fulfilled by them. The researcher gave clear explanation how to fulfill the questionnaire. e. Collecting the questionnaire from respondents f. Analyzing the data from questionnaire Data Analysis The data was analyzed by the following steps: 1. Researcher calculated students response with descriptive analysis run by SPSS to know the mean, standard deviation and level of each variable based on the scales. Mean: the sum of all scores in a distribution divided by the number of cases. Standard deviation: measured the spread of the data about the mean of value. It is useful in comparing sets of data which may have the same mean but a different range. Level: a position in a scale or rank. 2. To find the interpretation of mean score, the researcher used criterion which described in the table as follows. Table 5. The scale and remark for the problems of the students Scale Remark Very negative Negative Positive Very positive

5 Reliability The researcher using Cronbach Alpha (α) to determine the reliability. The researcher used SPSS to analyze it to determine the reliability coefficient of the construct that use the four-likert s scale. Reliability analysis, using the Cronbach Alpha (α), is carried out to determine the reliability coeffiencents of the instruments. As Pallant (2001) ideally suggested that Cronbach alpha coefficient of construct is 0.7. if the each domain obtains the value.7,the item in each domain are understood by most of respondent. If the findings is far from the expected value.7, this might be caused by respondents have different problems toward each item of the domain. However, as Hair (1998) suggested that Croanbach alpha coefficient of construct is good enough at 0.6. If the each construct/domain obtains the value.6 means that the items each domain are understood by most of respondent. Reliability analyses were conducted to 20 items of questionnaire. The overall Alpha (α) value of the items was.914. the processed than was continued by investigating the Cronbach alpha in each domain and sub domain. The α for each domain were, α=803 for speaking: a=.622 for reading, α=.730 for writing, α=.683 for listening. The α values of all domains show a good and acceptable consistency coefficient which means to say that the instrument is reliable. Table 6. Cronbach Alpha in each 4 Components Components Number of Items α level Speaking Reading Writing Listening Overall Finding and Discussion The questionnaires were distributed in one class from four classes. The participants are 102 students. The calculation of questionnaire result of students problems in learning English as a foreign language is in table 6. Table 6. Students problems in learning English as foreign language No. Component Mean Std Level 1. Speaking Positive 2. Reading Positive 3. Writing Positive 4. Listening Positive From the table above, it can be seen that students perceived that students problems with speaking had high mean score with total mean score It means that students problems is positive and dominant from other components. Students percieved that students problems with reading had same mean score with total mean score Students percieved that students problems in writing with total mean score And for listening with total mean score 3.03 Based on the findings, all of components such as speaking, reading, writing, listening percieved positive in positive problems in Learning English. By knowing the problems result of each component, the researcher can determine the final result. Speaking with mean score 3.09, reading with mean score 3.09, writing with mean score 3.00 and listening with mean score from the four components, the level of each components was positive. The first component of studnets problems in learning English was speaking. Speaking had highest with.309 mean score and dominant from other components. The highest problem that was faced by student in speaking English was their lack of vocabulary. As Grib (2002) said, the problem of speaking faced by students contains linguistic knowledge, and vocabulary problem was one problem that often occured as the problem in speaking. The second problem that was faced by students in speaking English was related with their motivation. They were shy to speak English in class with their friends or with their teacher. It could be because the students were shy or confused in saying something and arranging the word as stated by Richard and Renandya (2002). The difficulty of arranging some word into a sentence in speaking also occured as the problem in speaking. The second component in this research was the problem in reading English. Most of all of the students agreed that the main problem they were faced in reading English text was that lack of vocabulary that they had understood. Most of the students could not understand the text about because they did not know what the meaning of the word. This problem caused the occurence of another problem. Because of their lack of vocabulary, they became confuse to understand the sentence, a passage and difficult to determine the main idea of the text. The difficult wordsthat appear in the text became a problem for students in understanding the meaning of the text. The unfamiliar word could become a difficult word to understand the text. Beside that, almost half of the students agreed that they were bored when they had to read a long text. Here, there was a lack of motivation that shown in reading. Lack of vocabulary and motivation were the main problem that faced by the students. Writing skill in learning English become the third component was researched. The main problem that faced by the students in writing skill was related with the formulation of the words. They often forgot how too arrange the words into a good sentence. They also often forgot about the tense they should usedin a sentence. They did not know what word they should took in right tense. They were also confused how to arrange the words into a sentence. They often did grammatical

6 error in writing. And lack of idea in making a paragraph also occured as the problem in writing. Those problems were caused by they got problems in making a good paragraph. The last component was listening. The main problem in this component was the speaker s speed. The students perceived that the speaker speak to fast. It is could be because the students were not accustomed in using English in their daily activities and because their lack of vocabulary, they did not understand what the speakers talk about. Even though, the pronounciation were not became a problem for studnets in learning listening. Conclusion In this study, the researcher found that students at eleventh grade of SMP Negeri 23 Muaro Jambi perceived from four components. They are speaking, reading, writing, listening. Students have positive problem in learning english as a foreign language. First, students problems in speaking with mean score 3.09 is positive. In speaking, the students were shy to show their ideas because the lack of vocabulary and lack of pronounciation, so it means the student did not have ability in speaking English. And also the students still confuse and don t remember about the vocabulary. Second, students problems in reading with score 3.09 is positive. The common problem in reading is understanding the text. The students usually find the difficult words in the text and bored when read the long text so that why the students difficult to understand a sentence in paragraph in the text. Beside that, the students also have problems in pronounciation. Third, students problems in writing with mean score 3.00 is positive. In writing, the students getting difficult to make a good paragraph. In here, the students have lack vocabulary and also the students did grammatical errors when writing the paragraph. They still confuse when they want to write because they don t know how to write with word choice. Fourt, students problems in listening with mean score 3.03 is positive. In listening, the students with questionnaire number 18 with mean high score 3.35, it means that the students have problem because sometimes in listening the speaker speak too fast, also the students heard vocabulary and confuse to differentiate in some of words which one have the same pronounce but different in the meaning. Suggestion The following are suggestions for teacher and students. The english department should have subject for teach them about how to use language strategies because it is useful for students in English major. It helps them better understand the subject and can think in step by step. The teacher should suggest the useful strategies for each skill and adapt with the subject such as speaking, reading, writing, and listening or subject which was a basic of learning English skills. If students have a problem, teacher should suggest them beacause the teacher have experience and be profesional. And when they have techniques or process to improve their skill, they will like to learn a second language. In the materials of English learning, the teachers should support tape, video, CD, computer, text, picture, learning English through the songs, movies etc. to help the students improve their knowledge about English. For students, in speaking and listening skill students have to practice together. These 2 skills are skill which students should practice more often, because it memorizes from experience. Using English when the students have time and chance. For reading skill, students should read a lot of book in English, during read, translated which one of the word that you don t understand with dictionary. And try to guess a meaning of unkown vocabulary when practice themselves. And for writing skill, students should planning before writing that can reduce the mistake and make students can write in step by step. 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