Editorial Board
Vol. 5 No. 2 (2024): September Issue
Articles
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Speaking Anxiety of the Eleventh-Grade Students at Senior High School
Abstract View: 1957 PDF Download: 746Anxiety related to speaking can also impair students' communication skills; students who have poorly understood pronunciation feel ashamed and are unwilling to practice speaking. This research was conducted to determine the categories of anxiety of the speaking anxiety level by the eleventh-grade students in the English classroom of SMAN 19 Palembang. This descriptive research used a quantitative descriptive method. The research instrument was a questionnaire. The questionnaire was adapted from the Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety Questionnaire (FLSAQ) from Öztürk and Gürbüz (2014). This research involved 76 students of eleventh grade in the English classroom of SMAN 19 Palembang. It consisted of 17 statements with three categories: high level, medium level, and low level. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive analysis. Based on the research analysis, it was found that the dominant speaking anxiety was test anxiety. The types faced by the respondents were the fear of test anxiety (75.62%), communication apprehension (73%), and fear of negative evaluation (70.04%). Furthermore, from the questionnaire result, the anxiety level category was determined to be 3 categories: high level, medium level, and low level. The level of students’ speaking anxiety in the middle level was 56.6%. It is significantly different from other levels with 32.9% for the low level and 10.5% for the high level. This finding indicated that teachers need to be more aware of students’ anxiety to arouse students’ motivation to speak confidently and fluently in English-speaking classes. Therefore, teachers must be creative in designing better techniques to encourage students to talk more.
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Implementation of Bilingual Learning Perspectives, Challenges, and Obstacles
Abstract View: 836 PDF Download: 463Bilingual learning programs refer to two-language learning programs that use the mother tongue and foreign language as learning media. Palembang Civil Aviation Polytechnic has implemented a bilingual learning program based on the curriculum issued by the Human Resources and Development Agency of the Ministry of Transportation. This research aimed to assess the degree of success of bilingual implementation in Polytechnic Civil Aviation Polytechnic. This research used a descriptive qualitative approach, where observation and interview were used to collect data involving all lecturers and cadets using intact sampling with 297 (12 lecturers and 286 cadets). Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The data result showed that lecturers and cadets have positive perspectives on bilingual learning even though improvements need to be made to implement bilingual learning to be more effective. In the implementation of bilingual learning, it was indicated that there were some issues regarding challenges and obstacles during bilingual learning. In the challenges, it was found that the participants were not motivated to speak English and were confused about the English language applied in the field of aviation and the goal of the bilingual learning program. Moreover, the lecturers and cadets faced obstacles dealing with material sources, infrastructure support, attitude, ability, and English proficiency.
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Students’ Writing Anxiety and Its Correlation to Their Writing Achievement
Abstract View: 781 PDF Download: 504Writing plays an important role in learning and understanding English. Students consider writing difficult due to writing anxiety and lack of confidence. This study aimed to investigate the correlation between students' writing anxiety and their writing achievement. The sample consisted of thirty-three students from one of the senior high schools in Prabumulih, South Sumatra. A correlational study was used to design the study. A questionnaire and reading comprehension test were the instruments to collect the data. Based on the findings, the majority of the students, specifically 61%, exhibited symptoms of physical anxiety. Additionally, a smaller proportion of students, namely 9%, displayed signs of avoidance anxiety, while cognitive anxiety was reported by 30% of the participants. Researchers found that 5 students (15%) on the critical exposition test were considered average, 3 students (9%) were considered fair, 6 students (18%) were considered poor, and 19 students (58%) were considered inadequate. The study found a significant correlation (sig.2-tailed) of 0.30 between students' writing anxiety and their writing achievement. With coefficients of 0.104, cognitive anxiety emerged as the most common form of writing anxiety among students. This finding indicated that cognitive anxiety was responsible for the greatest contribution to students' writing achievement.
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Teachers' Problems in Teaching Listening Comprehension at MA Patra Mandiri Plaju Palembang
Abstract View: 616 PDF Download: 432Of the four English skills, listening is the most important skill to be taught, and this process cannot be avoided by all teachers who teach English. However, some teachers still have problems teaching listening comprehension to students. This research aimed to discover the teachers’ problems in teaching listening comprehension at MA Patra Mandiri Plaju Palembang. Two participants were selected for this research. The researcher employed a purposeful sampling technique with a homogenous sampling teaching approach to choose the participants. The design of this study was qualitative research in the form of a case study. This study was conducted at MA Patra Mandiri Plaju Palembang; the researcher utilized one-on-one interviews through open-ended questions to collect data about the problems in teaching listening comprehension by following the interview guidelines. The data was analyzed by using a thematic analysis process. The results showed that there were some problems in teachers' teaching of listening comprehension at MA Patra Mandiri Plaju Palembang, which were divided into (a) students’ psychological factors (motivation, anxiety, and interest), (b) students’ background knowledge, (c) the attitude of students, (d) students’ lack of vocabulary, (e)teaching aids and media, (f) the material, (g) method of teaching listening, (h) fast speed of speech, (i) limited time.
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Promoting Four Corners Strategy to Improve Secondary School Students' Speaking Skills
Abstract View: 850 PDF Download: 588Four Corners is a cooperative learning strategy that drives students to think things through carefully before sharing them with others. This strategy encourages the students to express their thoughts, opinions, and feelings with their peers by creating four opinion corners: strongly agree corner, agree corner, strongly disagree corner, and disagree corner. This research aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the four corners strategy in enhancing secondary school students’ speaking achievement and compare the students’ speaking achievement between the experimental group and the control group. The researchers employed a quasi-experimental design. 168 students made up the entire population. The research participants were chosen using purposive sampling. 64 students participated as the sample, divided into experimental and control groups. An oral test about asking and giving opinions was used to gather the data. The test was administered twice. The Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and the Mann-Whitney U Test were used to analyze the data since the data were not normally distributed. The results of the Wilcoxon Signed Rank test revealed that the students showed a considerable improvement in speaking skills when employing the Four Corners strategy. The results of the Mann-Whitney U test showed that students’ speaking abilities who got intervention using the Four Corners strategy were better than the students who did not receive the intervention using the Four Corners strategy.
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Prospective Teachers' Learning Strategies in Learning English
Abstract View: 559 PDF Download: 456Language learning strategies are specific actions, processes, acts, or methods that students frequently use to improve their language proficiency. Learning strategies are crucial for language learners since they facilitate the learners in processing language learning and acquisition. This current research highlights the investigation of prospective teachers’ preferences on learning strategies they mostly adopt when learning English. This research used a cross-sectional survey design. The sample was 147 prospective teachers, selected by using total sampling. The data was obtained using a Strategy Inventory of Language Learning (SILL) questionnaire, version 7.0., adopted from Oxford (1990) which consisted of 50 items measuring 6 learning strategies: memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective, and social. The students used a Likert scale of 5 ratings to respond to each item of the questionnaire describing their preferences and experience in learning English. The obtained data were analyzed descriptively by measuring and comparing the mean score range to identify which learning strategy was mostly employed by the students in English language learning. The research findings showed that the mean score of metacognitive strategy was 3.625. It was higher than other learning strategies. It indicated that the prospective teachers mostly adopted the metacognitive as their learning strategy in learning English.
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The Correlation Between Reading Attitude and Reading Comprehension Achievement
Abstract View: 635 PDF Download: 412This research aimed to investigate the correlation between reading attitude and reading comprehension achievement among eleventh-grade students at MAN 1 Lahat. A correlational research method was employed to assess the relationship between these two variables. The study's population comprised nine classes of eleventh-grade students, from which a sample of 98 students was selected through convenience sampling. Data collection involved administering a reading attitude questionnaire designed to measure students' perceptions and feelings toward reading and a reading comprehension test to evaluate their comprehension skills. The correlation between the collected data was analyzed using SPSS 25 software. The findings revealed a correlation coefficient (r) of 0.011, significantly lower than the critical value of the r-table, set at 0.913. These results indicate a weak and statistically insignificant correlation between reading attitude and reading comprehension achievement among the eleventh-grade students at MAN 1 Lahat. Thus, it can be concluded that while there may be some relationship between these variables, the strength of this correlation is not sufficient to be considered meaningful within this specific educational context. Further research could be beneficial to explore additional variables that may significantly impact students’ reading achievements. Understanding these dynamics can provide educators with valuable insights into improving reading instruction and fostering better student comprehension skills.
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Improving Reading Achievement on Descriptive Texts Using Choral Reading Strategy
Abstract View: 724 PDF Download: 473Teachers can employ flexible grouping to enhance choral and duet reading which can benefit students' fluency and expressiveness. This strategy enrichment the students of reading boosts confidence in their ability to speak and read English. This research aimed to determine whether there was a significant difference in reading achievement on the descriptive text between tenth-grade students at SMK Gajah Mada 3 Palembang who were taught using the choral reading approach and those who were not. The participants were tenth-grade students from SMK Gajah Mada 3 Palembang. This research sample consisted of 41 students chosen using a purposive selection technique. They were placed into two groups: experimental and control groups. This research used a quasi-experimental design. The data collection tool was a reading achievement test administered twice to the sample (pretest and posttest). There were 20 valid multiple-choice questions. The data were not normally distributed; thus, the Mann-Whitney U Test and the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test were employed to examine data. According to the Wilcoxon Signed Rank test findings, the students' reading achievement significantly improved when they used the choral reading strategy. The Mann-Whitney U test results demonstrated students who got a treatment utilizing the choral reading technique excelled in reading compared to those who did not. There was a substantial difference in reading achievement on descriptive text between tenth-grade students at SMK Gajah Mada 3 Palembang who were taught using choral reading strategies and those who were not.
