52
Google Translate only be used when they were confused and their friends did not know the answer of their questions. The students said that friends
were more reliable than Google Translate. Next question was related to their perception about the use of
Google Translate in doing Analytical Exposition. The result for thisquestion was negative toward Google Translate. Google Translate did
not help them but let them into mistakes. “Ya sebenarnya membantu gak membantu.Kan kalau nulis
Analytical itu ditulis Bahasa Indonesia dulu baru Bahasa Inggris. Nah, kalau translate pake Google Translate dari
Bahasa Indonesia ke Bahasa Inggris itu kadang ada kata yang nggak cocok itu hlo. Jadi tetep harus dicek ulang
sendiri lagi.”Student 19. “Well, to be honest it is so so. Sometimes it helps, but
sometimes it does not. I write Analytical Exposition in Bahasa Indonesia first then I translate it into English. If I
translate it using Google translate, sometimes I find the mismatch vocabularies. So I need to recheck it again by
myself.” “Jadi menurutku Google Translate itu nggak membantu
sama sekali dalam pembuatan Analytical Exposition. Soalnya kan udah tau kalau itu salah, jadi kenapa masih
dipake. Mending pake kamus.”Student 30. “In my opinion, Google Translate is not helping at all in
making my Analytical Exposition. This is because I already know that Google Translate is already wrong. I prefer
dictionary.” From the answers, it showed that students did not want to use
Google Translate. For their own good, they prefered to use dictionary which was more reliable than Google Translate.
53
The last question for the students was; what are your suggestions to improve your skills in writing English?
“Sering baca artikel Bahasa Inggris, terus lirik-lirik lagu gitu.Nonton film juga ngebantu.Karena bikin tau
vocabulary baru.Jadi kalau gak tau artinya bisa ditulis trus
nanti dicari artinya.”Student 30. “I read a lot of English articles and try to find English
songs‟ lyrics. Watching movie also helps because movie helps me knowing new vocabularies. And when I do not
understand the meaning of the vocabularies, I write them
down and try to find the meaning latter.” “Sering baca-baca artikel bahasa inggris, lagu-lagu
bahasa inggris, games di kelas juga harus banyak daripada guru Cuma omong di depan kelas. Nggak kreatif dan bikin
bosen.” Student 16 “I read a lot of English article and listen to English songs. I
hope there are more games in class. Games in class are more effective than teacher who is only speaking. It is not
creative and bore
me.” This is because their weaknesses in writing were vocabularies and
grammar; therefore it would be better if the teacher could find games that could help those memorizing vocabularies and learning grammar in an
easier way. From the interview result, it could be seen that Google Translate
might be not really helpful in translating a whole sentence. However, students found it helpful to help the students translating words so that they
enriched their vocabulary.
54
B. Discussion
This part presented the discussion of the data analysis in order to answer the research question which was the students‟ perception on the use of
Google Translate in writing analytical exposition text in XI IPS 1 of SMA N 1 Banguntapan. The researcher would combine the data finding with the
supported theories to make strong foundation. As already discussed in review of literature, George and Jones 2005
state that perception is how an individual sees others and how other perceive individual. To add in, Kreitner 1995 states that perception will lead to
change of attitude, motivation, and behavior as a response. The statements supported byAltman et al. 1985 whostate that
perceptions occur because of stimuli then the sensors‟ selection of stimuli will respond and create perception, organization, and interpretation of stimuli to be
behavioral response. The theory was also supported by Gibson et al.2006; p. 99 who state that perception defined as a process involving receive, organize,
and interpret the stimuli. Therefore the researcher applies the theories of perception to find out the answer for the question above.
Therefore, it could be understood that the perception one student to another would be different.Google Translate was one of online tools which
very popular these days. This online tool was made to help people to translate from the 1
st
language into the targeted language. Therefore, many students used this tool to help them doing their English assignments, especially for
them who did not know English very well. This also happened to students in
55
XI IPS 1 SMA N 1 Banguntapan. They used Google Translate to help them in writing their analytical exposition text. Writing an analytical exposition text
was one of the skills that students in grade XI needed to pass. It was written in grade XI syllabus of KTSP curriculum in Indonesia. This skill was designed to
introduce argumentative text to the students and let students wrote their own texts with the topic prepared. However, because English was unfamiliar
language for the students, writing an analytical exposition textwas not an easy task for them. Students tried to find a way to help themselves doing this
assignment. Therefore, many of the students used Google Translate to help them writing analytical exposition text.
From the research finding, the students of XI IPS 1 found that writing was a difficult thing to do. Especially writing English which was not their own
language. According to Tiedt 1989, p. 6 from all of the languages skills, writing was the most difficult and it is a hard work. This was because writing
was a skill that requires learners to produce a correct written language Brown, 2007, p. 391. Harmer 2011, p. 52 also agrees as he states that writing was a
complex skill which requires some steps and took more time. From the data analysis on the factors influence writing skill, it could be
seen that more than 50 of students agreed in two main difficulties. The lack of knowledge from the students about vocabulary and grammar were the main
source of difficulties why writing analytical exposition textwas difficult to them. This finding supported by White, Graves, and Slater 1990 who stated
that vocabulary knowledge is the single best predict of English learners‟
56
academic achievement. Therefore, students who did not know a lot of vocabulary found it difficult to make a good writing.
“Aku itu nggak tahu banyak kosa kata Bahasa Inggris. Padahal kalau mau nulis tugas Bahasa Inggris itu kan
harus tahu banyak kosa kata Bahasa Inggris. Jadi emang kadang itu yang bikin susah t
erus males buat ngerjain.” Student 19
I do not know many English vocabularies. Meanwhile I know that vocabularies are important if we want to write
English writing. Therefore sometimes that makes me lazy to do the assignment.
Based on the data above, the student realized that it is important to know and memorize a lot of English vocabulary. It was also supported by the
result of the data from open-ended question from the questionnaire and the interview. The majority of the students agreed that the lack of knowledge
about vocabulary bothered them because it slowed the process of their writing. The result supported by Anderian and Feebody 1981 and Coady 1997 who
state that vocabulary is known to be an important indicator of general language ability, correlating well with quality of writing as cited in Lee
Muncie, 2006, pp. 295-296. As Leki and Carson 1994, Uzawa and Cumming 1989 state, this
was the reason why a lack of vocabulary was considered to be the factor that makes writing in foreign language most difficult as cited in Lee Muncie,
2006, pp. 296. Another difficulty that student found during writing their Analytical
Expositions was their lack knowledge of grammar. As important as vocabulary, grammar knowledge in English writing was also crucial. Knowing
57
grammar would be the basic thing before writing English. The result supported by Widdowson who stated that language learning was essentially
grammar learning, and it was a mistake to suppose otherwise as cited in Sjolie, 2006, p. 36.
Therefore because of the lack of knowledge of vocabularyand grammar, students usually tried to find a tool to help them understand English
better. Google Translate was one of many tools which student knew for a while. It was a tool which provided a way to translate first language into the
targeted language. According to the data gathered from the research, the majority of the
students agreed that Google Translate did not help them in writing their Analytical Exposition. Since Google Translate was only a machine that was
made by people to help translating languages, there were too many grammatical mistakes and incoherence vocabularies chosen.
“Google Translate itu lebih sering menjerumuskan dan bikin bingung daripada membantu.Iya sih kadang
membantu kalau kita bingung sama arti sebuah kata, tapi kalau udah buat satu kalimat, udah gak bisa
dipercaya.”Student 30. I think rather than helping, Google Translate is confusing.
Sometimes Google Translate works for words‟ translating, but it is not working
for sentences‟ translation. The findings in the research were influenced by the students‟
perceptions. It might be different because the students look or understand something from their own views Mouly, 1973. This is because according to
58
Kreitner and Kinicki 2007, p. 207 perception is a cognitive process which lets people to interpret and understand surroundings.
The students‟ perception on the use of Google Translate in writing their Analytical Exposition was connected by students‟ own experiences
which was supported Warga 1983 who state that perception is based on the past experience. Based on the data analysis, students could not decide whether
Google Translate helped them as a learning tool in writing Analytical or not as the majority of answers
chosen by the students were „undecided‟. From the data gathered, it could be concluded that Google Translate
sometimes helped the students in writing Analytical Exposition but sometimes it did not help students in XI IPS 1 SMA N 1 Banguntapan. Some of the
students believed that Google Translate helped them in writing Analytical Exposition as they kept using it meanwhile other students disagreed that
Google Translate could help them in writing Analytical Exposition.
