STUDENTS’ BARRIERS IN SPEAKING English AND THEIR EXPECTATION ON WHAT TEACHERS HAVE TO DO TO HELP THEM

Bacground

No one can deny the university in English. In Indonesia as many other non English-speaking countries, English has become a compulsory component of education.  At many school and universities, English is chosen as a compulsory subject for students as English is considered to be a useful tool to access the world knowledge. In our daily communication, most of us speak more than we write. Hence, many language learners regard speaking ability as the measure of knowing a language. These learners define fluency as the ability to converse with others, much more than the ability to read, write, or comprehend oral language. The regard speaking as the most important skill they can acquire, and they assess their progress in terms of their accomplishments in spoken communication.

 

STUDENTS BARRIERS IN SPEAKING ENGLISH

To most people, mastering the art of speaking is the single most important aspect of learning a second or foreign language, and success is measured in term of the ability to carry out a conversation in the language.  

Most of the students and English teachers have also known and realized that speaking is the second skill of language after listening that needs a lot of practice, such as how to pronounce the words correctly, how to produce grammatical sentences, and how to create logically-connected sentences. In fact, many EFL teachers often find it difficult to ask their students to practice speaking in English.

 

METHOD

This study was descriptive and qualitative in nature since it focused on observing, interpreting, and understanding the collected data to find the real obstacles that hinder the students from practicing speaking in English.

In qualitative research the trustworthiness and authenticity of the data collection play a very important role. In collecting the data, the researcher applied observation, questionnaires and interviews. In order to enhance and maximize the trustworthiness of the research result, triangulation was applied, in which the researcher collected the data from both the students and teachers.

The researcher applied some strategies as follows:

1.      Observation was firstly held in order to know whether there were a significant number of students who did not often practice speaking in English.

2.      Then, questionnaires were distributed to the randomly chosen respondents to elicit the opinions on the obstacles that hinder them from practicing speaking in English.

3.      Finally, to confirm the data got from the questionnaires and to elicit other obstacles in practicing speaking in English, the teachers were interviewed.

      RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

1.      What the students’ expect of their English teachers

From the 73 respondents who did not often practice speaking in English, there were only 68 of them who answered the question about what the teachers have to do motivate them to practice speaking in English. They expect the teachers to: 

a.      Understanding the students’ feeling and their limited ability in English.

b.      Be kind and friendly to the student ands and see them as the way they are.

c.       Use English when teaching.

d.      Motivate them to practice speaking in English; the teachers can stimulate, ask, train and unconsciously force the students to practice speaking in English.

e.      Explain the lesson clearly.

f.        Make class alive, fun and interesting.

g.      Use game in teaching; the teachers can use games as icebreaker.

h.      Be close to students.

i.        Accept the students’ mistakes and be willing to correct students’ mistakes kindly.

j.        Be patient in teaching in teaching and guiding student with low ability.

k.       Be humorous and not authoritative.

l.        Be willing to practice directly with the students; the teachers are willing to become one of the students’ partners to practice speaking in English.

m.    Give homework not too frequently; too often and too much homework make students get bored.

n.      Be willing to use code-switch into Indonesian when explaining difficult concepts.

o.      Have a firm attitude; the teacher should be able to make all students obey him and her.

 

Conclusions

Based on the research finding, some conclusions can be drawn. First, the students’ greatest barrier in practicing speaking in English relates to themselves. They do not practice speaking in English because of being afraid of making mistakes. Realizing that their unlimited English communication ability would probably result in mistakes, they get anxious and shy to be laughed at. Despite the fact that they do not want to take this risk, they finally stop practicing speaking in English or just keep silent. Second, the English speaking non-compulsory environment also becomes another obstacle. Since there is no rule that obligates students to speak English, there are only few students who practice speaking in English. As a matter of fact, many students get difficulties in finding their partners to practice speaking in English. Third, improper teaching methodology and uninteresting teachers are the other minor hindrances. Hence, the students expect their teachers to willingly understand their limited English communication ability and to be more friendly, patient, humorous, enjoyable and closer to them. It is expected that English teachers conform themselves to the students’ aspirations...