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trade and the constraint of career. Accordingly, the students were proud to be vocational high school students. This circumstance led them to the evidence that there
were a number of subjects they had to deal with. Therefore, the interpretation was continued by their lived experience in acquiring difficulties and easiness during their
study.
b. Acquiring difficulties and easiness
Learning English at vocational high school, somehow, was not easy nor difficult. The most important was the good maintenance of time studying the different
majors. The students had passed learning English since they were in the X grade in this school. Since they came from different majors of study, the stories of each
student were rather different. It was quite difficult but somehow it was easy. Egi, in his view of learning English, found that English was the same as the
other subjects. In his statement AE03-AE10, he identified that he enjoyed learning English. Also, he did not find any problem when dealing with English. He said that
“If there is problem, maybe it’s just about the vocabulary” AE09. Hence, his trouble was more or less about vocabulary. When he faced the vocabulary which was
unfamiliar, he would be difficult to do the English task. He liked learning English since junior high school. Learning English for him was interesting and fun. Egi ever
joined the competition which was held by the school. It was debate competition. He and his team, who consisted of three students, had passed semi-final stage. It was a
good achievement. In the class, both the students and the teacher used full English. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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Also, when the students practiced in front of the class, they also use full English AE27.
Furthermore, he stated that was very satisfied with the result of English. AE47. For Egi, learning English was very gratifying. “Learning English is very
enjoyable for me. Moreover, learning text in English can make me knowledgeable. I can learn many things, such as the vocabulary, generic structure, grammar, and the
meaning in the text, especially short story text. In the future, I will keep learning English, increase my knowledge about English, in order to gain my dreams” AE61.
The next interpretation was Laura’s lived experience in learning English in vocational high school. According to her, learning English was entertaining. Same as
Egi, Laura loved English because she loved the story. She liked reading books, novels, which contained of drama story in it. She adored the flow and ending of the
story. She could grab the life meaning of reading such kind of stories AL27. Moreover, Laura said that learning English in vocational high school was not really
hard. It could help her to know the meaning of certain words since her major was Computer and Network Engineering.
Nevertheless, she sometimes found difficulties sometimes in facing difficult English material. As Laura stated AL09 “I often forget about the rules of structure”.
It showed that she found difficulties in English structure. She also told about the teacher who deliver the English material. In her statement AL44, she preferred to be
taught clearly first then given the assignments. It was rather difficult to do the task that had not been taught. “Actually it is quite hard, but it was discussed in the
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previous grade. Unfortunately, I often forget about it. So I need explanation repeated, hehe”, said Laura AL47.
The last interpretation was Angel ’s lived experience. Similar to the two
previous students, Angel was also happy when learning English. She liked English sometimes, depended on the situation AA03. However, she often found the
difficulties. The difficulties came from when she learnt English structure. She was often confused of its pattern AA17. She told that it was quite hard for her to follow
that difficult material. Moreover, she came from the difficult major, which was TPGMB Gas Manufacture and Petroleum Engineering. It was no wonder that she
frequently found toughness in learning English, because she generally focused on her major.
In conclusion, the three participants have their own complications when facing English. Egi was hard when he had to deal with unfamiliar vocabulary, Laura
often forgot about tenses and its structure, and Angel often got confused when she faced the pattern of English grammar. But overall, those three students said that they
got a lot of values by learning English. As stated by Schunk 2012, p. 2, learning process is acquiring and modifying knowledge, skills, attitudes, strategies, beliefs,
and behaviors. Thus, the students have those aspects when facing English lesson. They have strategies in managing their times to study English well even though it was
quite hard for them. It is also in line with Ellis 2008 who says that learning endures times and it needs process.
The weaknesses also become the result in learning English. One of them is mistake Corder, 1967 as cited by Ellis, 2008. Some students may make mistake in
