Lecturer of Teacher Training and Education Faculty of Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa University
D. DISCUSSION
D.1 Students’ Major Problems in Speaking English
The general findings of the study reveal two big categories of students’
problems in speaking English-linguistics and psychological problems. As the data show, the linguistics includes grammar, vocabularies, pronunciation and mechanics which in speaking skill context refer to fluency and accuracy issues. In addition, psychological factors also contribute to the students’ low ability in speaking as they are lack of practice using English in their speaking activities especially during the teaching and learning in the classroom. The psychological factor, in this context, includes lack of self confidence, fear of making mistakes, feeling shy, nervous and feeling anxious. Those factors are listed in the table 1 below.
Table 1. Students Major Problems in Speaking English Linguistics Problems Psychological Problems Vocabularies
Grammar Pronunciation Fluency Accuracy
Lack of self confidence Fear of making mistakes Shy
Nervous Anxiety
As data from the interview revealed, one major problem students still face is vocabulary. According to them, vocabulary is something important but still becomes one of their problems in speaking English. This problem, in many cases, reduces their participation in the classroom as most of them were afraid of making mistakes, for instance, because they could not express their thought in English due to the absence of supporting vocabularies.
The same case occurred when they thought that they had no certain vocabularies to further elaborate their ideas as can be seen in the following statement.
I can actually speak English but sometimes I am afraid of making mistakes when I am speaking because of grammar or vocabularies. I mean, sometimes I want to say A but I don’t know the word to say it so I just keep silent (Ratu, pseudonym).
The statement above clearly shows that vocabularies and also grammar are two main factors causing students’ inactiveness in speaking English. As the data from observations revealed, some students in the classroom were very active arguing and sharing their ideas in English although problems in grammar and word choices (vocabularies) occurred. However, for most students, keep silent was likely a good way to “safe their face” in the classroom. This group of students was reluctant to “take a risk”-keep trying to speak in English, because they are afraid of making mistakes. As a result, their speaking skill improvement is left untouched. This confirms what
140 Kumpulan Gagasan: PENDIDIKAN MENJADI PRIORITAS Smith (2001) mentioned about the importance of vocabulary to support one’s speaking skill. He said that vocabulary is the basic for speaking or conversational skill because the more words one knows, the more he/she can say and understand. Thus it is therefore necessary to provide students access to vocabularies and grammar knowledge by, for example, reading activities as suggested by Mart (2012) and Zang (2009) who believe in the close relationship between reading and speaking skills. They argued that there is no question that people who develop large reading vocabularies tend to develop speaking vocabularies. This is relevant to the concept of intertextuality arguing the importance of reading to support, in this case, speaking skill (Bakhtin cited in Emilia, 2010).
Other causes of students’ problem in speaking are related to the mechanics which in this context refers to fluency and accuracy in terms of pronunciation. Many students are reluctant to speak and actively participate due to their problems in pronunciation. As one of the students said, pronunciation is a matter that hinders him so far to speak in English as in, I think my pronunciation is still bad so that’s why I am shy to speak (Yori, pseudonym). This student is lack of confidence in expressing his thought in English because he feels that his pronunciation is, according to him, still very bad. This suggests that explicit explanations and direct telling regarding the pronunciation are important to do. Explicit explanations and drills on pronunciation might help students to be more aware about their problems in this speaking aspect and at the same time help them to understand as well as improve their pronunciation. Through this, it is hoped that they have a better self confidence in speaking which will surely contribute to their speaking skill improvement.
The problems related to the linguistic one such as grammar and vocabularies directly relate to other type of problem which is psychological problems- lack of confidence, fear of making mistakes, shy, nervous, among others. With these two types of problem, it is not surprising that not many
students actively express their thought orally in English. The following statements from students strengthen this issue.
I’m afraid of making mistakes when I am asked to speak in English.
I think my pronunciation is not good and I’m afraid my friends will not understand when I am saying something in English (Wan, pseudonym).
I don’t know, I am nervous when I speak English especially when it is in front of my friends. I forget everything to say when I am speaking in front of my friends (Rahmat, pseudonym).
The two statements above indicate two psychological matters faced by the students. Nervousness and lack of confidence, as reported in many other studies (see Juhana, 2011, among others) reduce students’ participation in the classroom in speaking English. As a result, their exposure to the speaking practice is lack causing their slow improvement in terms of speaking English.
All in all, both linguistic and psychological factors causing students’ slow improvement call for a teaching approach that is concerned with building both aspects to support students’ improvement in speaking English. The following section discusses findings related to students’ responses toward the implementation of speaking with content program.
D.2 Students’ Response toward the implementation of Speaking