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STI]DEFITS' COMMUNICATION APPRM,HENSION

II\ CLASSROOM INTERACTION

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Study at the

First Year

Students at Speaking

II

Class of English Department

of

STKIP

PGM

Sumatera Barat Academic

Year

2015n0L6)

Maifinal), Siska, S.S., M.Pd1, Edwar Kemal, S.S., M.IIum3) l)English

Education Departrnent, STKIP PGRI Padang ,IalanGajah Mada Gunung Pangilun Email: maifina99@],ahoo.cory ⁽^I^swriter)

]fnglish

^EducationDepartnent, STKIP PGRI Padang, Jalan Gajah Mada Gunung Pangilun Email : siskafahlevi@]rahoo.com ^(2"owriter)

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^3)EnglishEducation Deparunent, STKIP PGRI Padang, Jalan Gajah Mada Gunung Pangilun Email: edwarkemal@yahoo.co.id ^(3'owriter)

ABSTRACT

This research explained about levels of students' communication apprehension in classroom intenction.

This research is descriptive research where the population is the first year studenb at Speaking I[ class of English Department

of

STKIP PGN Sumatera Barat Academic Year 2015/2A16 that consist of 4 classes.The sampling technique used random sampling. The instruments of this research were questionnaire and interview. The sample chosen were 74 students and asked to fill the questionnaires that consist of 24 items. In order to know the levels

of

strdents' communication appre,hension, the writer used questionnaire adapted from Mdroskey (2009), known as the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24). Based on the questionnaires distributed to the students, found

2l%

have high level

of

communication apprehension, the moderate level of communication apprehension was 7lo/o, and the high level of communication apprehension was 8%. Based on the percentage

of

those tlrree levels, the most level had by the first year students at Speaking tr class of English Deparfrnent of STKIP PGRI Sumotem Barat Academic Ye*rr 2A15/2016 was moderate level.

ABSTRAK

Penelitian ini menjelaskan tentang tingkat kecemasan yang dimiliki oleh mahasiswa di dalam interaksi kelas. Penelitian ini adalah penelitian deskriptif, dimana populasinya adalah mahasiswa bahasalnggris tingkat pertama STKIP PGR[ Sumatera Barat T.A 2015n016 yang terdiri dari 4 kelas.Teknik pengambilan data yang digunakan adalah Random Sampling. Instrumernt penelitiannya adalah angket dan wawancara. Sampel yang diambil pada penelitian ini be{umlah 24 mahasiswa dan dimintaunfirk mengisi angket yang terdiri dai 24 item. Untuk mengetahui tingkat kecemasan bertomunikasi, penulis menggunakan kuesioner yang diadaptasi dari McCroskey (2009) yang dikenal dengan the Persanal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24). Berdasarkan angket

yang dibagikan pada mahasiswa, 21Yo dianb;ra;nya memiliki tingkat kecemasan berkomunikasi yang tinggi.

Sementaraitu, tingkat kecemasan sedang dengan persentase 7lYo, serta tingkat kecemasan berkomunikasi yang rendah dengan persentase 8%. Dan berdasarkan hasil persentase dari ketiga level tersebut, maka level yang paling banyak dimiliki oleh mahasiswa tingkat pertama program studi Bahasa InggrisTahun Ajaran 2015D016 adalah level sedang.

Keywords : Commanication Apprehension (CA); classruom intetaction.

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English Education Study Program- PGRI Sumatera Barat [2016]

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INTRODUCTION

Communication is an essential part in our life. Communication can build our knowledge. When someone communicates with other person or people, he/she will get information. Also, he/she can give the information to others. Communication is a process of delivering information or message.

But, the speaker should be able to deliver the message or information well to the listeners.

Communication is successful only when the speaker and listeners understand each other. If the message delivered well, the listeners will get it well. But, if communication cannot run well between both of them, it will make misunderstanding or misconception. It means thatcommunication will be useful and better when a speaker is able to transfer the message or information to listeners.

In classroom interaction, communication also happened. It involved the teacher and the students. Through interaction in the classroom, the students communicated with the teacher or among themselves. The teacher delivered the message or information to the students in the classroom. Also, the students could deliver the message to both the teacher and their friends. It means that in classroom interaction, there might be the teacher who asked the students about something and the student or students told something that related to what the teacher asked. Beside, the students did not only tell information to the teacher, but also to their friends.

In fact, the students did communication differently between the teacher and among themselves in the classroom. Although communication is important in classroom interaction, it did not just run well. The students tent to be passive in communicating with the teacher. In foreign language class, the fluency of interaction will be disturbed by some problems such as the lack of students’ in using the target language while the classroom interaction was done by using the target language.

That condition led the students to have anxiety that effect students’ level

participation in the classroom. When the students felt anxious in interaction, it was surely appear lack of participation in the teaching learning process. This feeling generally called communication apprehension. Communication apprehension is the fear or anxiety associated with real or anticipated communication with others (McCroskey in Sellnow, 2009). This is a situation where a person feels nervous and afraid to communicate with others. This feeling impedes someone because of his/her fear about communication. It means that this feeling makes someone cannot deliver the message to others (listeners) well.

In addition, West and Turner (2009:4) state that communication apprehension is a fear or an anxiety pertaining to the communication process. It means that when someone communicates with another person or persons and he/she is not comfort and makes him/ her feels fear, he/she is said apprehensive in communicating. Someone who has communication apprehensive communicates not well because of these fear and anxiety. Someone may desire to communicate with others, but is impeded by his/her fear or anxiety about communication.

Based on the description above, the resercher assumed that these kind of problems also occur in EFL class probably also at English class of English Department, STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat. Based on the researcher’s experience, when studied at English class, there were just a few students who responded on lecturer’s question. The other students mostly just kept silence and tent to accept the lecturer said without giving question or comment. So, they tend to be silent in the class even they wanted to ask question or comment. They did not do that because of some factors, such as low intellectual skill in English so that they tend to be passive rather than make mistake when they speak. Even at the university level, students felt apprehensive, shy, and insecure when asked to speak English in the classroom.

Talking about students’ passiveness in the classroom interaction could be caused

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by their anxiety. Teachers and students generally felt strongly that anxiety was a major obstacle to be overcome in learning to speak another language. Due to its emphasis on interpersonal interaction in the classroom, the construct of communication apprehension was quite relevant to their anxiety.That leads the researcher on analyzing students

‘communication apprehension in classroom interaction at the first year students of English Department of STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat.

RESEARCH METHOD

This study was designed as a descriptive research. As stated by Gay and Airasian (2000:275), the descriptive research is used to investigate the variety of educational problems and issues. The researcher chose descriptive research because the researcher wanted to find out the level of students’ communication apprehension that was conducted in STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat. This research used quantitative approach. According to Gay, Mills, and Airasian (2012:7), quantitative research is the collection and analysis of numerical data to describe, explain, predict, or control phenomena of interest. The data in this research was score indicated the levels of communication apprehension. Those scores were analyzed by using the formula from McCroskey in Wrench et al (2009:57-58) to determine the levels of communication apprehension. Also, the data was the result of interview that was done to the students.

This research was conducted at the first year students of English Department of STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat academic year 2015/2016.The populationin this research wasthe first year students at Speaking II class of English Department academic year 2015/2016.There were four classes of education program as the object of this research. Class A consisted of 33 students, class B consisted of 32 students, class C consisted of 31 students, and class D consisted of 23 students. Total of the students from whole classes were 119 students.

In this research, those whole students were not the sample of the research.

But, the researcher used random sampling technique in selecting the sample. The researcher decided to select 20% from total students. There were 24 students that be the sample of the research. Gay, Mills, and Airasian (2012: 131) state that random sampling is the process of selecting a sample in such a way that all individuals in the defined population have an equal and independent chance of selection for the sample. The selection of the sample is completely out of the researcher’s control;

instead, a random, or chance, procedure selects the sample. In other words, every individual has the same probability of being selected and selection of one individual in no way affects selection of another individual.

In order to find out the level of communication apprehension of the students, a set of questionnaires adapted from McCroskey in Wrench et al (2009:57-58), known as The Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) was used by the researcher in this research.The PRCA-24 is the instrument which is most widely used to measure communication apprehension.It is a 24-item scale that measures communication apprehension. It utilizes a 5-point of Likert scales ranging from (1) strongly agree to (5) strongly disagree.

In addition, the researcher also used interview as the instrument in this research.

The researcher did the interview to the students to get depth information about their feelings in communication. According to Gay, Mills, and Airasian (2012:386), an interview is a purposeful interaction in which one person obtains information from another.

The researcher did unstructured interview.

In gathering the data of this research, the researcher directly distributed the questionnaires to the students after prepared it. Then, the researcher asked the students to fill that questionnaire. In questionnaire, the students were guided to fill it based on what happened to them when having communication with others. After that, the researcher interviewed the students and recorded it. The interview was done to know what they felt about communication with

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other more deeply, because their feelings have also known through the questionnaire that distributed. Interview helped the researcher to support the data that the researcher got from the questionnaires.

In analyzing the level of students’

communication apprehension, the researcher chose the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) adapted from McCroskey that analyzed by doing the following steps:

1. Computing sub scores for an overall communication apprehension (CA) score. Strongly agree=1 point, agree=2 points, undecided=3 points, etc.

Scoring Formula

18+scores for items 2, 4, and 6– scores for items 1, 3, and 5

2. Determining Overall CA Score The score should range between 24 and 120. The descriptions of scoring are:

a. Scores between 80 and 120 indicate a high level of communication apprehension.

b. Scores between 51 and 80 indicate a moderate level of communication apprehension.

c. Scores between 24 and 50 indicate a low level of communication apprehension.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Based on the questionnaires distributed to the students, among 24 students, there were 21% who have high level of communication apprehension, 71% have moderate level of communication apprehension, and only 8% have low level of communication apprehension. The students who had low level of CA feel comfortable when having communication with the lecturer

or their friends in the classroom. Then, the students who had moderate level of CA were not too active or too passive. While, the students who had high level of CA tend to be silent than speak in the classroom. The students who had high level of CA are more than those who had low level of CA. The most is moderate level of CA. The percentage of students’ level of CA can also be seen in the diagram below:

CONCLUSION

Communication apprehension was identified as the factor of students’ passiveness in the classroom interaction. 21% of the students had high level of communication apprehension, 71% of them in moderate level, and only 8% who had low level communication apprehension. The activities in the classroom such as questioning, answering, responding and others were done by using English. Students were demanded to use English in the classroom. So, most of them had trouble related with that. Most of them felt afraid and undecided to make mistake when they speak English. They also felt tense and nervous when they wanted to use English. So they tend to keep silence. When the students had such kind of problem in using foreign language to communicate, it is called communication apprehension. It could influence the student’s participation in the classroom interaction. Thus, it can be concluded that students’ level communication apprehension also influenced classroom interaction.

8%

71%

21%

Percentage of Students' Level of CA

Low level Moderate level High level

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To complete her thesis, the researcher has obtained a plentiful guidance, help, advices, and constructive critics from many people. In this occasion, the researcher would have to extend her special gratitude and very special thanks and appreciation are given from the deepest of her heart to the advisors, Siska, S.S., M.Pd and Edwar Kemal, S.S., M.Hum who have been kinds and willing to give their times, opinions, and supports in completing this thesis.

REFERENCES

Gay, L.R., & Peter, Airasian. (2000).

Educational Research. Competencies for Analysis and Application. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Gay, L.R, Geoffrey E. Mills & Peter Airasian.

(2012).Educational Research

Competencies or Analysis and Application. (10^th Ed). New York:

Pearson Education.

McCroskey, James C. (2006). An Introduction to Rhetorical Communication: A Western Rhetorical Perspective.

NewYork: Routledge.

Radford, Luis. (2010). Classroom Interaction:

Why is it Good, Really?.Educ Stud Math, 76: 101-115.

Sellnow, Deanna D. (2005). Confident Public Speaking. USA: Wadsworth.

West, Richard., & Lynn H. Turner. (2009).

Understanding Interpersonal Communication.USA:

Wadsworth.

Wrench, Jason S. (2009). Communication, Affect & Learning in the Classroom.

USA:Cengage Learning.