In this study, monitor hypothesis will be used to analyze students‟ speaking performance. This particular hypothesis is chosen because it is
resp onsible to the students‟ language productions, both in spoken or written
forms. Besides, since the students will have their own ability, the use of their monitor will also be varied based on their ability. There might be a student who
will monitor their utterances optimally, or a student who will over-use their monitor, or even there might be a student who will not use their monitor at all.
2.5 The Monitor Hypothesis
Every student will have their own capability and competence in getting certain knowledge. Some of them might be high achievers and the other might be
low achievers. This is the most fundamental thing in relation to the way they get proper knowledge about particular thing, especially in acquiring the language.
Monitor hypothesis mainly relates to the learning-acquisition hypothesis. According to Krashen 1982:15, acquisition initiates our utterances in a second
language and responsible for our fluency, meanwhile learning has only one function, and that is as a Monitor, or editor. Learning has the role to make changes
in the form of utterance, after is has been produced by the acquired system. This process is called as Monitor Hypothesis. Hence, The Monitor hypothesis claims
that acquisition and learning are used in very specific way which is to monitor the language production, both in spoken and written forms. To make it clear, consider
this picture:
Learned Competence the Monitor
Acquired Output
Competence Figure 2.1
: Acquisition and learning in second language acquisition. Krashen 1982:16
The figure above reveals how monitor will edit the output of the production of the acquired competence. The monitor will edit or correct the output
before or after the utterance is actually spoken or written. So, the monitor will not only edit the students‟ speech production, but the written production as well.
The use of monitor is related to the use of the rule grammar. Krashen 1982:16 states that there are three conditions that need to be achieved in order to
make conscious grammar fully operated. However, it does not necessarily mean that the users can fully operate their monitor even if these conditions are met.
Those conditions are: 1 Time. He says that there must be sufficient time in order to use the grammar properly. In conversational activities, sometimes there is no
sufficient time to think or even to use the grammar properly. 2 Focus on form. Having sufficient amount of time will be not enough in operating the monitor. The
speaker or the performer needs to consider the form also. This process may lead to the process of thinking about correctness. 3 Know the rule. This is the most
difficult requirement due to the fact that the structures of language are complex. There are so many aspects which need to consider. He stresses that this is become
the problem because even the best students do not learn every rule they are supposed to.
In conclusion, it can be concluded that monitor hypothesis proposed by Krashen states that the process of learning will enable such a device called
monitor that has function to monitor the language production, both in spoken and written forms. The monitor can be used and very useful when three conditions are
met, such as: time, focus on form, and know the rule. However, due to the fact that every student has their own competence, it does not necessarily mean that the
monitor will fully operate even when those three conditions are met.
2.6 Individual Variation of Monitor
