Psychological Factors That Hinder Students from Speaking in English Class (A Case Study in a Senior High School in South Tangerang, Banten, Indonesia)
Time : 25 minutes
Pages : 15 pages
Thesis Statements :
Feeling anxious during classroom oral presentaion is commonly expressed by EFL students, they often fear and worry to speak with L2 because the anxiety hinders the students to speak and the teacher sometimes does not recognize their anxiety, that is why the author conduct this study. The study is objected to investigate psychological factors that hinder students from speaking and the cause of the factors as well as the possible solution to overcome the factors. The participants consisted of 62 second grade students of senior high school in South Tangerang, Banten province to find out their perspective related to the psychological factors that hinder them from speaking. In terms of findings, the study revealed that psychological factors such as fear of making mistake, shyness, anxiety, lack of confidence and lack of motivation hinder students from speaking in English class. Those factors, like fear of making mistakes, were commonly caused by their fear of being laughed at by their friends. The possible solution to overcome those psychological factors, most students believed that motivating them to be more confident to speak English is worth considering. This finding suggests that the teachers should be more aware of their students’ hindrance to speak in English class.
Research Questions :
1. What psychological factors that hinder students from speaking in English Class?
2. What factors that causes the psychological factors?
3. What are the possible solutions to overcome students’ speaking anxiety
Methodology : The methodology of this study is Qualitative case study. This study employed three techniques of collecting data namely observations, questionnaires and interview.
Findings :
1. Psychological Factors
The study reveals that most students have psychological factors in terms of practicing speaking in English class. Of the five psychological factors, fear of mistake range first (37%) while shyness is the second (26%), followed by anxiety (18%), lack of confidence (13%), and the last is lack of motivation (6%).
2. Causes of Psychological Factors
Regarding fear of mistake, the result are relevant to the reports by Kurtus, (2001) and Frank Middleton, (2009); stating that students are afraid of making mistake because they are worry that their friends will laugh at them and receive negative evaluations from their peers if they make mistake in speaking English.
With respect to the cause of shyness, the results are in line with Bowen (2005) and Robby (2010) arguing that some shy learners are caused by their nature. This needs teachers’ effort to keep encouraging their students to build their self-confidence.
To turn to the cause of anxiety, the result are in line with what Liu, (2007); MacIntyre & Gardner, 1989 as cited in Zhou (2004) arguing that error and afraid of being evaluated are the causes of anxiety that make students very anxious in learning oral English. In this case, they are aware their performance is being evaluated by their peers and teachers.
With regard to lack of confidence, This is in line with Brown, (2001); Eli, 1986 as cited in Keramida, (2009) stating that students lack confidence and feel that they cannot speak English because they think that they do not have the ability to speak English well and their limited knowledge of the language.
In terms of lacking of motivation, The fact is lined up with Gardner in Nunan (1999) and Babu (2010) stressing that motivation is a product of good teaching, not its prerequisite, students are unmotivated and unwilling to speak English in the classroom among others are because uninspiring teaching and lack of appropriate feedback.
3. Possible Solution to Overcome the Psychological Factors
Regarding to fear of mistake. The result is actually a sign that students need to feel comfort with their teachers and believe that the teachers will help them if they make mistake. In addition, teachers should encourage students to ask for help without running the risk of embarrassment since mistakes are considered as a natural part of learning a foreign language.
With respect to overcome shyness, some students mentioned that they should do more practice to speak English to reduce their shyness. This condition for sure will make them get used to try to speak (Yeon Lim, 2003). In addition, the teachers should encourage the students in order to realize that being shyness is not a good thing because it will prevent them from improving their speaking.
To turn to possible solution to overcome anxiety, some students expected that their teachers should motivate them to speak English. Motivation from the teachers can give great affect to students when they are trying to speak English to express their ideas. This condition relates to the importance of motivation since it is an inner energy (Zua, 2008).
Regarding lack of confidence, some students addressed the solutions and suggestions either for themselves or for the teachers. They said that they tried to be calm and convinced themselves that they can do it. Meanwhile, they mentioned that he/she tried to keep speaking and ignored all the derisions that would make him/her lost his/her confidence and they expected that teacher gives the students more chances to speak English.
In terms of lack of motivation, some students shared their solutions to overcome lack of motivation. They said that he/she tried to motivate him/herself by keep studying English. Whereas, others asked his/her friends to be more serious and to respect someone who was talking. Further he/she added that the teachers should ask the students whether the students have understood or not and they more focused the solution on the teachers by saying that teachers should teach in interactive way in order to avoid monotonous class situation.
Conclusions :
Referring to the aim of the study, it can be concluded that students have psychological factors such as fear of mistake, shyness, anxiety, and the like that hinder them from practicing their speaking in English class. The factors, like fear of making mistakes, were commonly caused by their fear of being laughed at by their friends. In addition, in terms of shyness, the students said that their shyness was caused by their nature as shy persons. To turn to the possible solutions to overcome the psychological factors that hinder students from speaking, the students believed that motivating them to be more confident to speak is worth considering. In this sense, motivating students to speak in English, to some extent, encourages them to actively participate in speaking in
the class. All these suggest the importance of creating a supporting atmosphere of learning in the classroom.
Opinion/Vocabulary – expressions Learned :
- Hinder
- Regarding
- Reluctance
- Referring
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