Background of the Study
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conducting study on students’ beliefs about language learning, it should examine the factors influencing language learning such as self-esteem and learning
resources as well as the nature of language learning, i.e. what learner hold as learner about language, language skills, language learning, and how they see their
selves as a learner. In learning English, the way the students behave in the classroom must be
affected by the way they view the language. For instance, if the students consider that a language as a means of communication, they must more except to get the
language learning focus on English functions rather than English grammar. Then, in case of language skills, it has divided into four separate skill
areas, namely listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Listening and reading are known as the receptive skills; while speaking and writing are known as the
productive one. According to SIL International 1999, listening is the process of hearing a new item; speaking is trying to repeat the new item; reading is seeing
the new item in written form and writing is reproducing the written form of the item.
Meanwhile, belief about learning is related to how the students view the process of language learning. The students must bring different expectation about
how they should learn English in the classroom. It is not only related to the general learning process but also to what will be learned and how it will be
learned Brindley, 1984 in Richards 1996. All the views owned by the students are influenced by theories of learning that the students use and believe.
Dealing with the area on how the learners view their selves is more on self-assessment. It requires to
strengthen the students’ capacity to self-regulate
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their own performance” Nicol, Macfarlane-Dick, 2006: 205. Also, to raise the awareness that the major goal of education is to help students learn to monitor
their own performance. It means beliefs are important because the students need to understand themselves as learners in order to understand their needs as self-
directed learning students. For self-esteem, Horwitz 2008 suggests that it refers to how learners feel
about themselves and about language learning. Self-esteem affects an individuals learning in a variety of ways: how he relates to others, what kind of risks he takes,
how he tolerates uncertainty and anxiety, and to what extent he feels able and willing to assume responsibility for his learning Kohonen, 1993: 268.
Related to learning sources, Tomlinson 1998: 02 defines it as anything which is used by teacher or learner to facilitate the learning or a language, it could
obviously be cassettes, videos, CD-Rooms, dictionaries, grammar books, workbooks or photocopied. It means that every student must have different
preference and expectation for their learning resources or materials in order to increase their knowledge and experience of the language.