Putri Anggia Pramuditha, 2015 STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN SPEAKING ENGLISH AND THEIR STRATEGIES TO OVERCOME THE
DIFFICULTIES Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
| repository.upi.edu
| perpustakaan.upi.edu
limited time to practice speaking English. The students often got blank when they wanted to convey what in their minds. Consequently, incorrect pronunciation
cannot be hindered. The similar study was conducted by Sudjasmara 2013. He was trying to find the difficulties and strategies in speaking English encountered
by non-English department. After implementing the questionnaire and interview, the results showed that the students were anxious and lacked vocabulary when
speaking English. Liu 2007 also found the same result in his study. He found that anxiety and lack of vocabulary were encountered by some students when
speaking English in the Chinese context. According to the explanation above, difficulties in speaking English are
still encountered by some students vocational students in this case. Therefore, this study was designed to find out
students’ difficulties in speaking English and the strategies they used to overcome those difficulties. This study was conducted
at a vocational school in Bandung by using 12
th
graders of software engineering SE programme as the respondents.
1.2. Statements of the Problem and Research Questions
The issues of speaking English have been explained in the background section. Based on the background of the study, two questions are formulated to achieve the
aims of the study. 1.
What difficulties are encountered by 12
th
graders of software engineering SE programme at a vocational school in Bandung in speaking English?
2. What strategies are used by them to overcome their difficulties in speaking
English?
1.3. Aims of the Study
Based on the questions formulated above, the aims of the study are: 1.
to identify difficulties encountered by 12
th
graders of software engineering SE programme at a vocational school in Bandung in speaking English; and
2. to seek strategies they used to overcome the difficulties encountered in
speaking English.
Putri Anggia Pramuditha, 2015 STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN SPEAKING ENGLISH AND THEIR STRATEGIES TO OVERCOME THE
DIFFICULTIES Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
| repository.upi.edu
| perpustakaan.upi.edu
1.4. Significance of the Study
The finding of the study is expected to have theoretical, practical, and professional benefits. Theoretically, this study will develop knowledge among both English
teachers and the students as well, particularly about the students’ difficulties in
speaking English. This study is also intended to strengthen the recent theories from the previous studies. In addition, the findings of this study may be able to
enlighten future research of the same topic or even to create new theories and studies to develop better teaching method and technique to teach English
especially in speaking skill. Practically, this study proposes English teachers to use the information as
one of the references related to the students’ strategies to overcome their
difficulties in speaking English as a consideration to decide the appropriate teaching strategies to improve the
students’ speaking skill. Thus, it is expected that English teachers should find the solutions to overcome the
students’ difficulties in speaking English.
Professional benefits significant will relate to the advantages for English teachers who expectantly could improve teaching methods and techniques to
improve students’ speaking skill. Hopefully, this study will give the educators, particularly English teachers, self-awareness regarding the important role of
English for students’ future.
1.5. Clarification of Terms
