the low motivation of students in learning english foreign language in the context of speaking

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of study

One of the most important skills in EFL is

speaking skill. It shows the best influence when seeing

goal of speaking learning process, especially in EFL.

The goal of English teaching is to make students able to

communicate well. According to Oxford dictionary, speaking

is the action of conveying information or expressing

one's thoughts and feelings in spoken language. From

the definition, it concludes that speaking is

expression in sending messages from a speaker towards

listeners. Sending message in speaking uses verbal

language. Because of that, communication in speaking

way should be accurate. The accuracy will decide the

success of communication.

Mardiana, Nani Afriyani, Siti Latifah & Husnul HotimahSultan Ageng Tirtayasa University

Communication using languages can be conducted in

two ways: orally and in a written form. In the context

of language learning, it is commonly believed that to

communicate in a written form (writing) is more

difficult than orally (speaking), suggesting that

writing is a more complex language skill than speaking.

However, in reality, as Artini (1998) suggests,

although the complexity of spoken and written languages

differs, the differences do not reveal that one is

easier than the other. Spoken language which employs

variability and flexibility is in fact as complex as

written language, meaning that each is complex in its

own way. In order to increase the students’ speaking

proficiency, the students’ needs high motivation. This

is appropriate with Brown (2000) that says, motivation

and concern are high, and then the necessary effort

will be expended in pursuit of goals. It means that

motivation is very important both in teaching and

learning speaking. When the students have a big

motivation in learning speaking, then they will achieveMardiana, Nani Afriyani, Siti Latifah & Husnul HotimahSultan Ageng Tirtayasa University

their goal in speaking ability. Meanwhile, when the

students have a low motivation, then they will fail in

reach their goal in speaking. In this point, whether

the students able to speak fluently or not it is depend

on their own motivation.

1.2 Identification of Problem

1. Does the low motivation affect the students’

ability in speaking English?

2. What is the effect of the low motivation in

students’ ability in speaking?

3. How to overcome students’ low motivation in

speaking ability?


CHAPTER II

FRAME OF THEORIES

2.1 English as Foreign Language

Generally, in some countries English considered as

second language, but in Indonesia, English is as

foreign language. As state by Richards and Schmidt

(2002), foreign language as a language which is not the

native language of large numbers of people in a

particular country of region, is not used as a medium

of instruction in schools and is not widely used as a

medium of communication in government, media etc. They

note that foreign languages are typically taught as

school subjects for the purpose of communicating with

foreigners or for reading printed materials in the

language. It means that English can be used in

everywhere, not only in a formal situation and but also

in informal or in our daily life situation.


In Indonesia itself, English subject has been

taught since 1994 in primary school started from

fourth, fifth and sixth graders (Madya, 2002: 2). So

far there were many approaches, strategies, and methods

applied in teaching foreign language in schools.

However, many people still complain that EFL teaching

at school has failed to develop the students’ English

communicative skills. It is caused by their native

language and the difference of grammatical structure

considering English is as foreign language in

Indonesia. For instance, as the research conducted by

Aziz (2003) that Indonesian student tend to ignore

foreign (English) grammatical structure, such as in

these sentences:

A. I go to Bali last month

B. We study English since we are junior high

school students.

C. Linda visit her grandparents every month.


Those three examples are understandable but

grammatically in English structure are wrong. They

should be:

A. I went to Bali last month

B. We have studied/ have been studying English

since we were junior high school students.

C. Linda visits her grandparents every month.

2.2 Speaking

Speaking is one of four important skills in

foreign language learning. To express an idea students

have to speak. By active speaking, it is very useful to

increase their ability as students who learn English as

foreign language. According to Brown (in Florez, 1999)

speaking is an interactive process of constructing

meaning that involves producing and receiving and

processing information. Bygate states that speaking is

often thought of as a ‘popular’ form of expression.

Kayi (2006) adds that speaking is the productive skill

in the oral mode. It, like the other skill, is more


complicated than it seems at the first and involves

more than just pronouncing words.

From the statements of the experts above, we can

conclude that speaking is one of the important skills

in English foreign language since English is a

universal language that can be used everywhere to

communicate with everyone around the world.

2.3 Motivation

One of the difficulties for students in learning

EFL is speaking, since the goal of the students in

learning EFL is to communicate. Yet, in fact Indonesian

students still get difficulties and often reluctant to

speak because they are shy and are not confident to

expressing themselves in front of other people,

especially when they are being asked to give personal

information or opinion. Frequently, too there is a

worry about speaking badly and therefore losing face in

front of their classmates. Based on this case, it can

be identified that such students have a low motivation.


And this is the teachers’ duty to encourage the

students to be brave to speak up and expressing their

idea in front of their classmates.

According to Harmer (2007: 98) motivation is some

kind of internal drive which pushes someone to do

things in order to achieve something. In the line with

Williams and Burden (1997: 120) cited in Harmer (2007:

98) they go on to point out that the strange of that

motivation will depend on how much value the individual

places on the outcome he or she wishes to achieve.

Two main categories of motivation are recognized

as extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic

motivation is seen when learners willingly engage in an

activity purely for the personal satisfaction it

brings. It is the kind of motivation displayed by young

children in the preschool years and students of any age

when they study for the pure joy and satisfaction of

learning. Intrinsic motivation is almost entirely

absent in students with a history of learning

difficulty in school. Extrinsic motivation, on theMardiana, Nani Afriyani, Siti Latifah & Husnul HotimahSultan Ageng Tirtayasa University

other hand, is seen at work when an individual tries

hard to learn in order to gain some reward or to avoid

negative consequences of not learning. Both forms of

motivation are extremely important. The motivation

available in any given learning situation is the sum

total of intrinsic plus extrinsic influences (Ryan &

Deci, 2000; Thorkildsen & Nicholls, 2002).

Therefore, motivation is one of important elements

in encourage students to achieve their goal in speaking

proficiency. We cannot ignore the power of motivation

both in intrinsic and extrinsic especially for them who

learn language as foreign language in speaking context,

because basically students needs to have willingness

from themselves to be success in speaking skill.


CHAPTER III

DISCUSSION

Getting students to speak in class can sometimes

be extremely easy. In a good atmosphere, students who

get on with each other, and whose English is at an

appropriate level, will often participate freely and

enthusiastically if we give them a suitable topic and

task. However, at other times it is not easy to get

students going. It caused by the lack of teacher’s

attention toward the students; ignore students’ needs,

which is students’ needs are not only merely gain the

materials from the teacher but also get a motivation

during teaching learning process.

Speaking can be reached if the students have their

willingness to speak. In other word those students have

intrinsic motivation. Further, after the students have

their own intrinsic motivation, then it is teacher’s

duty to encourage their students by extrinsic


motivation. In another word, in order to make students

able to speak fluently in foreign language they need

those two kinds of motivation that is intrinsic and

extrinsic motivation. We can draw the conclusion that

between motivation and speaking ability are related

each other.

The phenomena in learning speaking especially in

Indonesia, commonly the students are difficult to

express their own idea, opinions, moreover when they

are being asked to give their personal information or

opinions in front of the class. In such situation, this

is the effect of the low motivation of students in

learning speaking. Low motivation itself is situation

when the students have no willingness to develop to

achieve something. Not all of students in EFL speaking

class have the courage to speak. It is supported by

Padmadewi (1998) cited in Widiati and Cahyono (2006)

that many of the students feel anxious in a speaking

class, and some are likely to keep silent. In

additions, based on Padmadewi’s research (1998) sheMardiana, Nani Afriyani, Siti Latifah & Husnul HotimahSultan Ageng Tirtayasa University

found out that students attending speaking class often

felt anxious due to pressure from the speaking tasks

which require them to present individually and

spontaneously within limited time.

Tutyandari (2005) mentioned that students keep

silent because they lack self confidence, lack prior

knowledge about topics, and because of poor teacher-

learner relationship. In order to cope with students

limited knowledge, she advised speaking teachers

activate the students prior knowledge by asking

questions related to topics under discussion. She also

mentioned that students self-confidence can be enhanced

and their anxiety reduced by giving them tasks in small

groups. This is strengthen by Jane Willis (1996) that,

“you must learn the language freely to learn to speak it, even if you make

a lot of errors”. It means that it doesn’t matter whether

the students make some mistakes, because, as stated by

Harmer (2007: 101), if everything is just too easy,

students are likely to lose their respect to the task

of learning. In this case, this is the teacher’s dutyMardiana, Nani Afriyani, Siti Latifah & Husnul HotimahSultan Ageng Tirtayasa University

to convince them that in speaking class it’s good to do

some error, because it means that those students have

passed the speaking learning process.

In order to help students to be brave in speaking

class, there are numbers of things teachers can do to

help (Wilson, 2005), they are:

1. Preparation

Wilson said that he students will perform much

better if they have the chance to think about what

they are going to say and how to say it. This may

involve just giving them quiet time to think in

their heads about how they will speak, or it may

means letting them practice dialogues in pairs

before having to do anything more public.

2. The value of repetition

Repetition allows students to improve on what they

did before. They can think about how to re-word

things or just get a feel for how it sounds.

Repetition works even better if students get a

chance to analyze what they have already done. AsMardiana, Nani Afriyani, Siti Latifah & Husnul HotimahSultan Ageng Tirtayasa University

Paul Howarth (2001) describes the pattern as the

process of speaking:

The result of the research, shown that intrinsic

motivation related to the students’ willingness to

speak; when the students have willingness and high

motivation in learning speaking ability, automatically,

they will have awareness to do it without any pressure

from other people (they love what they do).

Besides intrinsic motivation, the effectiveness of

learning speaking does not only come from internal

aspects of the students but also influenced by external

factors. According to Ryan & Deci, (2000) and

Thorkildsen & Nicholls (2002) cited in Westwood (2004:

31) states that extrinsic motivation, on the other

hand, is seen at work when an individual tries hard to

learn in order to gain some reward or to avoid negative

consequences of not learning. This is appropriate withMardiana, Nani Afriyani, Siti Latifah & Husnul HotimahSultan Ageng Tirtayasa University

Plan Perform Analyze Repeat

Harmer (2007: 98) that extrinsic motivation is the

result any number of outside factors, for example the

need to pass an exam, the hope of financial reward.

Teachers readily understand that not all students

are intrinsically motivated in certain lessons, and

therefore giving some form of reward for task-

engagement is one way of motivating students to do work

they would otherwise avoid; so gold stars, tokens,

praise and privileges are frequently used in primary

classrooms. As the simple example, In the classroom

Sometimes learners join a class because of extrinsic

motivation and become motivated intrinsically as

learning becomes enjoyable and rewarding.

There is argument that the use of extrinsic reward

systems in the classroom, can reduces the possibility

that students will become intrinsically motivated

(McInerney & McInerney, 2002; Ryan & Deci, 2000).

However, the relationship between the two types of

motivation is not necessarily antagonistic and can be


mutually supportive, as Schunk (2000) cited in Westwood

(2004: 32) suggests:

For instance, students may want to avoidsome academic activities but they work onthem to obtain rewards and avoidteacherpunishment. As skills develop and studentsbelieve they are becoming more competentthey perceive a sense of control and self-determination over learning. The activitiesbecome more intrinsically motivating, andpositive social reinforcers (e.g. praise,feedback) assist the process.

Westwood (2004: 30) in his book titled Learning and

Learning Difficulties, motivation plays the central role in

human learning, and the study of motivation has

generated a vast research literature of its own.

Motivation theory focuses on an individual’s reasons

for learning and the conditions under which motivation

is maximised. It means that motivation become crucial

factor in developing students’ learning achievement.

Moreover, in a productive skill like speaking that

involves the participant of the students itself.

Besides giving the two kinds of motivation to the

students who’s less motivated in learning speaking,


teachers need to help maintain good relation with EFL

learners, to encourage them to use English more often,

and to create classroom activities in order to enhance

students’ interaction.


CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSION

As one of the central elements of communication,

speaking needs special attention and instruction in an

EFL context like the one in Indonesia. Helping learners

speak English fluently and appropriately needs

carefully prepared and supported by strong motivation

which consists of internal and external. Intrinsic

motivation is seen when learners willingly engage in an

activity purely for the personal satisfaction it

brings. Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, is

seen at work when an individual tries hard to learn in

order to gain some reward or to avoid negative

consequences of not learning.

Phenomenon that exists is there are so many

students who still have low motivation especially in

speaking class, which low motivation is situation when

the students have no willingness to develop to achieve


something. The impact of low motivation will caused the

students of speaking class reluctant, shy, and less

confidence. Especially when the teacher asked them to

speak up in front of their classmate, there is worry to

say something badly and losing their face in front of

their classmate. Therefore, teacher need to facilitate

and make good relationship with students in order to

make them intrinsically and extrinsically motivated.


REFERENCES

Aziz, E. A. 2003. Indonesian English: What’s del tuh?. TEFLIN

Journal. Vol. 14 No. 1.

http://www.teflin.org/journal/index.php/teflin/art

icle/ viewFile/53/26 (accessed on September 26th

2013)

Harmer, Jeremy. 2007. The Practice of English Language Teaching

(4th Edition) (With DVD). Cambridge: Longman.

Madya, Suwarsih. 2002 Developing Standards for EFL in Indonesia

as Part of the EFL Teaching Reform. TEFLIN Journal. Vol.

13 No. 2 p. 142.

http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pengabd

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standards-efl-indonesia-part-efl.pdf (accessed on

September 26th 2013)

Westwood, Peter. 2004. Learning and Learning Difficulties.

University of Hong Kong: ACER Press.

Widiati, U., & Bambang, Y. C. 2006. The Teaching of EFL

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the low motivation of students in learning english foreign language in the context of speaking

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