Correlation between Students’ Attitudes toward English and their English
Learning Achievement of the Eleventh Grade Students of MA Negeri 1 (Model)
Lubuklinggau
CHAPTER
I
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
A. Background
Language is a means of communication of human
beings. Language can be in written, spoken, or signal forms. According to Dörnyei (1998),
Language is at the same time: (a) a communication coding system that
can be taught as a school subject; (b) an integral part of the
individual's identity involved in almost all mental activities; and also
(c) the most important channel of social organisation embedded in
the culture of the community where it is used. Language helps people
communicate easily in their community. In each community, they have their own
language. However, when one community would like to communicate with other
communities from different language backgrounds, they need to use a language
which each of them can speak with.
English is a language widely used in the world.
English has an important role in many aspects of life. English is used in
technology, education, science, career, and also as a primary means in
communication. English is one of foreign languages that it is taught in
Indonesia.
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The objective of teaching English in Indonesia
schools is as follows: (a) develop communicative skills in oral and written
form. The skills are listening, reading, writing and speaking, (b) build the
importance of learning English as one of foreign language to be main learning
material, and (c) develop an understanding about interrelation between language
and culture and expanded sight, so the students have cross cultural sight and
involve in (Departemen Pendidikan Nasional,
2003:14).
As mention above, it can be seen that the objective
of English language learning and teaching in Indonesia is to develop
communicative ability in the four of language skills, they are; listening,
reading, writing, and speaking. Therefore, if students can use English
communicatively, they are likely to broaden their inter-lingual and cross
cultural insight so that they can promote their culture to the world.
From several years of teaching, the researchers have
noticed that learning English is closely related to the attitudes toward the
English subject. On the other hand, proficiency in acquiring a second language
may also be influenced by attitudes. Besides, it is the researchers’ belief
that a better understanding of language learner’s preferences and learning
attitudes can have a benefit effect on the process of helping and assisting
language learner in learning English. Attitudes do not remain static; they can
be changed by identifying the sources of negative attitudes and correcting
them. Additionally, they can be changed through the learning process by using
appropriate materials and teaching techniques. Attitudes also improve as a
result of language learning learners who learn well will acquire positive
attitudes. All in all, a better understanding of students’ attitudes may assist
teachers to select activities and tasks that generate the attitudes most
conductive to the production of more successful learners.
Attitude has recently received considerable
attention from both first and second language researchers. Most of the
researches on the issue have concluded that student’s attitude is an integral
part of learning and that it should, therefore, become an essential component
of second language learning pedagogy. There are several reasons why research on
students’ attitudes toward language learning is important. First, attitudes
toward learning are believed to influence behaviors, Kaballa & Crowley (in
Weinburgh, 1998:3) such as selecting and reading books, speaking in a foreign
language. Second, a relationship between attitudes and achievement has been
shown to exist. Schibeci and Riley (in Weinburgh, 1998:3) report that there is
support for the proposition that attitudes influence achievement, rather than
achievement influencing attitudes. How attitudes towards learning are formed,
how affect learning has been increasingly interest of language teachers and
researchers as well. The reason is that attitude influence one’s behaviors,
inner mood and therefore learning.
Education is the powerful tool which helps to modify
the behavior of the child according to the needs and expectancy of the society. Student’s attitude is an integral part
of learning and that it should, therefore become an essential component of
second language learning pedagogy. Especially in education, if the students
have positive attitude towards any subject, they can achieve many things in
that specific area. There is an interaction between language learning and the
environmental components in which the students were grown up. Both negative and
positive attitudes have a strong
impact on the success of language learning.
High school period is an important stage to the
students to face a lot of competition and it is a gate way for them to enter
into higher studies. So they are aware of the importance of English, how it is
mainly helpful to them to do well in the academic study and their professional
life in future. Since they want to continue their higher studies in college,
the English is considered as the foreign language in every school. It is tough
for the students to understand the English language. Hence the researcher feels
that the classroom activities in the study of English should develop the
students’ attitude towards the study of English and it should help them to
enhance interest to learn English.
Identifying students’ attitude will help the
educators to understand how students are affected by foreign language learning
and what causes them to have positive or negative attitudes. Attitude which
forms a part of one's perception of self, of others, and of the culture in
which one is living (Brown, 2007:193) is important in Education. Because
attitude determine the individual’s capacity to participate effectively in the
learning process and help student to enjoy and interest in the subject and have
students be succesful.
Based on the consideration above, the researcher was
interested in doing the research entitled Correlation
between Students’ Attitudes toward English and their English Learning
Achievement of the Eleventh Grade Students of MA Negeri 1 (Model) Lubuklinggau.
Moreover, by the description above that explains attitudes affect learning
achievement, it makes the researcher wants to find out the correlation between
students’ attitude toward English ang their English learning achievement. The
researcher convinced that the result of the study will be useful and there are
many significances, specially to encourage the teachers of English to consider
students’ psychological factors which may affect their English learning
achievement.
B. Formulation
of Problems
Based
on the limitation of the problem above, the researcher formulated the question
of problem as follows:
1.
“Is
there a significant correlation between students’ attitude toward English and
their English learning achievement of the eleventh grade students of MA Negeri
1 (Model) Lubuklinggau?”
2.
“How
is the correlation between students’ attitude toward English and their English
learning achievement of the eleventh grade students of MA Negeri 1 (Model)
Lubuklinggau?”
C. The
Scope of the Research
The research
focused on attitudes which has cognitive, affective and behavior components as
one of determinants of foreign language learning achievement. The sample
limited the students was the eleventh grade students of MA Negeri 1 (Model)
Lubuklinggau in the academic year of 2015/2016.
D. The
Objective of the Research
Based on the
problem which has been mentioned above, the objectives of this research were as
follows:
1.
To
find empirical evidence of whether or
not there is a significant correlation between students’ attitude toward
English and their English learning achievement of the eleventh grade students
of MA Negeri 1 (Model) Lubuklinggau.
2.
To
describe the correlation between
students’ attitude toward English and their English learning achievement
of the eleventh grade students of MA Negeri 1 (Model) Lubuklinggau.
E. The
Significances of the Research
The result of this research is expected
to contribute the valuable information in English teaching and learning related
to achievement in the foreign language. It will also give advantages to
students, teachers, researcher and the other researchers. The significances of
this research are as follows:
1.
To
the Students
It is expected that the results of this research
will be beneficial in introducing and informing students about correlation
about attitudes and achievement in learning process.
2.
To
the Teachers of English
It will encourage teacher to consider students’
psychological factors which may affect their English learning achievement. It
will provide an input to the teacher to select the best methods and techniques
in teaching English. Therefore students can improve their achievements.
3.
To
the Other Researchers
The other researcher can use this research as the
reference for the future research related to attitudes toward English and
English learning achievement.
F. Operational
Definitions
In
the operational definitions, there three terms that are going to be explained
in this study. They are correlation, attitudes and learning achievement.
1.
Correlation
Correlation is definied as relationship
or connection that exist between variables. Correlation in this study referred
to the relationship between students’ attitudes toward English and their
English learning achievement.
2.
Attitudes
Attitude is a drive inside of the people
in doing something. It is believed that attitude affect learners’ behavior
toward learning; therefore, negative or positive attitude affect language learning.
Attitudes in this study referred to the eleventh grade students’ attitude
toward English.
3.
Learning
Achievement
Achievement can be as the description
for the students and also about how well their learning process work. If the
students have the great scores, it means the learning process is success
achieved by the students and the teachers also.
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