Analyzing and Interpreting the Data

34 All students also believed that knowing various English accents could enrich the students‟ knowledge on English accents. The following figure presents how the students perceived the English accents to enrich their knowledge. From the figure above, it can be seen that all of the students perceived the English accents positively. It was proven by twenty five students 53.19 who chose “agree” and twenty one students 44.68 who chose “strongly agree”. There was no student who chose “disagree” and “strongly disagree”. The students also stated that the knowledge on English accents was useful to help them to communicate or to interact with many people around the world who use English. In addition, the students also believed that by being introduced to different types of English accents, they were able to improve their listening skills, as shown by the statements five with the result twenty three students 48.94 chose “agree” and twenty three 48.94 students chose “strongly agree”. The result from the open-ended questionnaires also showed that, listening to non-native English speakers ‟ accents helped them to be more sensitive to many sounds of English accents. It increased their awareness to correct the mispronunciation from the non-native English speakers. Figure 4.1 Accents of Non-native English Speakers can Enrich Students’ Knowledge disagree : 0.00 strongly disagree: 0.00 agree: 54.35 strongly agree: 45.65 45.65 54.35 35 The students also believed that understanding various English accents was effective to improve their listening skill. Thirty two students 68.09 chose “agree” and thirteen students 27.66 chose “strongly disagree”. There was only one student who chose “disagree”. In conclusion, most of the students had positive perceptions on the accents of non-native English speakers. They perceived that understanding various kinds of English accents could give them some benefits. The benefits are to enrich the students‟ knowledge of English accents and to help them to improve their listening skills.

2. The Challenges in Listening to the Accents by Non-native English

Speakers In the questionnaire, the second category was about the challenges that students identified in listening to the accents of non-native English speakers in their speaking. This category included the statements from seven to fifteen. The researcher divided the challenges as represented in the following table. Table 4.2 The Distribution of the Responses on Challenges in Listening to the Accents by Non-native English speakers No Statements Frequencies of Responses Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Strongly Agree 7. I felt challenged to listen to new accents of English - 2 4.35 17 36.17 27 58.70 8. I could catch or understand the main ideas in the recording of non-native English speakers. - 9 19.57 30 65.22 7 15.22