RESEARCH PAPER
Submitted as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Getting Bachelor Degree of Education
in English Department
by
HENY PURWANTI A320 040 392
SCHOOL OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION
MUHHAMADIYAH UNIVERSITY OF SURAKARTA
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
A. Background of the Study
Nowadays, many people learn foreign languages. One of the foreign
languages that people learn is English, which is an international language. The
same thing happens in Indonesia. English becomes a trend in this country.
Related to this phenomenon, many people believe that it is better to learn
English as early as possible because they consider that children learn
languages faster, with less effort, and with better result than adults (Yuwono,
2000: 4). Consequently, a lot of preschools offer English as one of the subjects
emerge.
Although a lot of young learners are taught English since their early
age, unfortunately many of them are not very successful in acquiring this
language. There are so many reasons for this failure, such as “unfriendly”
English teachers and ineffective teaching methods. In addition, many parents
are not aware of their involvement towards their children’s academic success
(in this case is learning English). These reasons make young learners feel
afraid and unmotivated to learn English more seriously.
Motivation is a major aspect that influences the achievement of the
learner in learning the language. Culture, family, school, and the children
themselves are four most important impacts on the children’s motivation to
study. Studies on students’ success and good quality of learning process reveal
that the best thing a family can do is being involved in their children education
(Hopkings, 1997: 2). Despite its background, like income and culture, each
family is a “home learning environment” which has the strength to encourage
as well as develop the children’s learning process and achievement at school.
Parents as part of family, have the capability to improve their children’s
schooling since they have “intimate knowledge” of their children, like their
skills, needs and interest. It will be a good thing if parents can keep their
involvement until the children in high school.
Parents who are the students’ closest persons have an important
responsibility to make their children realize that English is an essential
language. Some students are lucky to have parents who are concerned with
their education, and have the desire that their children should be able to master
English. To achieve this purpose, many parents send their children to private
courses to have extra English classes. However, they still need guidance from
their parents and expect that their parents will support them in learning
English. In contrast, other students do not have that kind of parents for
example, since both of their parents are working. So they have no time to
involve in their children’s schooling. Regardless, parental involvement in the
process of learning English as a foreign language is highly needed and vital
today.
Considering the phenomena above, we can not just hand over the
problems to schools as formal institutions to solve. What a very young child
learns is almost exclusively what his/her parents teach (Match, 1981: 6). The
young learners teaching process and support their children with inputs that
they need to gain success in learning English as a foreign language.
Furthermore, before parents can optimize their involvement, they must
understand the significance of parent’s involvement toward their children’s
education. One of the examples of parent’s involvement that students need is
guidance in learning/studying English. By guiding their children, there is a
better chance that they will be more encouraged to learn English.
The success of teaching learning process can be seen from the student
achievement. Achievement is a result which has been achieved by individual
after the students accomplished some assignment (Azwar, 1996: 11). It means
that achievement in education is the result which has been achieved by
someone after she or he follows certain subject at school. To reach good
learning achievement, there are some factors that determine, one of them is
parental involvement (Ellis, 1997: 52). According to Levine and Havighurst
(1992: 142)
“Parental involvement as cooperation and support from parents about their children’s education, that is when parents provide a positive environment for learning at home, reinforce school rules and expectations, and require or at least attempt to require their children to study hard and complete their assignments, so the teacher’s job is made easier and his or her effectiveness can be greatly enhanced. “
The students, whose parents can optimize their role, will reach better
achievement. On the other hand, parents with low awareness of their roles
As we all know that parents have so many roles related to their
children’s development in education especially in learning English such as
parents as first teachers, motivators, and partners and so on. In this preliminary
observation, the writer sees that almost all of the students’ parents in SD Al
Azhar Syifa Budi Solo come from middle to high-class background in terms
of their intellectuality and economy, which can support the expected theories
of parents who play their roles in helping the young learners’ success in
learning English as a foreign language. Based on the information from the
head master of SD Al Azhar Syifa Budi, the children have a good achievement
that can be seen from their achievement at every semester test which is high.
This research will focus on the third year student because from the interview
with the English teacher, the students’ achievement in English is mostly high.
Knowing the importance of parental involvement in English learning,
the writer wants to know the influence of parents’ involvement toward the
achievement of their children. So, the writer wants to conduct the research
entitled: THE INFLUENCE OF PARENTS’ INVOLVEMENT IN ENGLISH
LEARNING TO THEIR CHILDREN ENGLISH ACHIEVEMENT AT THE
THIRD YEAR OF SD AL AZHAR SYIFA BUDI SOLO IN 2007/2008
ACADEMIC YEAR.
B. Previous Study
To prove the originality of this study, the writer will present some
previous researchers in relation to this research. The first researcher is Hesty
Parental Involvement and Students’ Motivation in Learning English at The
First Year of SMP Christian 1 Salatiga.” The purpose of her research is to find
out what kinds of involvement parents had to motivate their children to learn
English.
The second researcher is Krisna Hartantyo (2005) with his study
entitled “The Impact of Parents’ Roles toward the Success of the First Year
Laboratory Christian Elementary School Salatiga in Learning English as a
Foreign Language.” Her research describes the parents’ role toward the
success of students in learning English.
This research related to the same theme that is about parents’
involvement in English learning as the same case of Hesty’s and Krisna’s
research. What makes this research different with both of that research are the
objective of the research and the subject. The objectives of this research is to
find out whether the parents’ involvement in English learning have positive
and significance influence to their children English achievement at the third
year of SD Al Azhar Syifa Budi Solo. The previous researchers take students’
parents of SMP 1 Christian Salatiga and SD Christian Salatiga as the subject
of research, while the subject of this research is students at the third year of
SD Al Azhar Syifa Budi Solo.
C. Problem Statement
As we know, English is a difficult subject to be learned. So parents’
involvement in English learning is needed. Based on that reason the writer
to their children English achievement. In this research the writer formulates
the research problem as:
“Does the parents’ involvement in English learning have positive and
significant influence to their children English achievement at the third year of
SD Al Azhar Syifa Budi Solo?”
D. Limitation of the Study
Based on the problem above, the researcher limits the scope of study as
follows:
1. The population is limited to the third year students of SD Al Azhar Syifa
Budi Solo in 2007/2008 academic year.
2. The object of the study is parents’ involvement and their children English
achievement.
3. The data of parents’ involvement are taken from questionnaire and the
data of their children English achievement are taken from the students’
school grade report of odd semesters in 2007/2008 academic year.
4. The parents’ involvement is limited to the English learning at the third
year of SD Al Azhar Syifa Budi Solo.
E. Objective of the Study
Based on the problem statement, the objective of the study is to find
significant influence to their children English achievement at third year of SD
Al Azhar Syifa Budi Solo.
F. Benefit of the Study
It is known that everything done always has advantages. There are two
benefits of the study.
1. Theoretical Benefits
a. The result can be used as the reference for those who want to conduct
the same topic.
b. It is expected that the result of this research can give general
knowledge to the parents about their involvement in English learning.
So they can try to find some solutions in improving their involvement
toward their children in English learning.
2. Practical Benefit
The writer and the readers clearly understand about the parents’
involvement in English learning and its impact to the children
G. Research Paper Organization
The outline of the paper is arranged systematically. This research paper
organization can be arranged as follows.
Chapter I is introduction which includes background of the study,
previous study, problem statement, limitation of the study, objective of the
study, benefit of the study, research paper organization.
Chapter II discusses review of related literature which contains notion
of learning, notion of achievement, notion of parents’ involvement, general
concept of parents’ involvement, conceptual framework, and hypothesis.
Chapter III delivers research method which focuses on type of
research, subject of the study, object of the study, data and data source,
method of collecting data, and technique for analyzing data.
Chapter IV is research finding and discussion.
