Background of the Study

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Having good skill in speaking English is important nowadays.English has become the leading means of communication worldwide.The modern world of media, mass communication, and Internet demands a good knowledge of English, especially of spoken Englishera Boonkit, 2010:1.Most college students are still not confident in their ability to speak; teachers must overcome their reluctance in order to change this situation, for that reason the student must be encouraged in mastering the speaking skill in comfortable situation and make them capable to communicate in English to achieve bright future in this globalization. Speaking remains as one of the least-mastered skills. For students, speaking activities do not oftenly work in classes because of many factors which prevent them from speaking in English. Students are afraid of making mistakes,are anxious, have fear of being laughed at by his or her friends and have lack of confidence in their ability. Teachers should create a good atmosphere in the classroom. A friendly environment can make the studentsmotivated and have high self confidence in studying and speaking in English. Teachers must also deal with the students’ psychological aspect to make them comfortable in teaching learning process and see the students as a whole person,with intellect, feelings, instincts, physical responses, and desire to learn.According to Larsen and Freeman 2000: 89 whole person learning means that teachers consider not only their 1 commit to user students’ intellect, but also have some understanding of the relationship among students’ feelings, physical reactions, instinctive protective reactions, and desire to learn. Community Language Learning also called Counseling Language Learning is aimed to remove anxiety from learning by changing the relationship between students and teacher become client and counselor. A language counselor does not mean someone trained in psychology; it means someone who is a skillful understander of the struggle students’ face as they attempt to internalize another language. The teacher, who can ‘understand,’ can indicate his acceptance of the students’ fear and being sensitive to them, he can help students overcome their negative feelings and turn them into positive energy to further their learning Larsen and Freeman 2000: 89. According to La Forge, in Richards and Rodgers 2001: 91-92,there are five psychological stages of Community Language Learning as learning progresses comparable to the progressing from childhood to adulthood:1 Dependent,in which the learner is like an infant, completely dependent on the knower for linguistic content. The learner repeats utterances made by the teacher in the target language and overhears the interchanges between other learners and knowers.2 Self-assertive,where Learners begin to establish their own self- affirmation and independence by using simple expressions and phrases they have previously heard.3 Resentful and indignant,when learners begin to understand others directly in the target language. Learners will resent uninvited assistance provided by the knower at this stage.4 Tolerant, The learner functions perpustakaan.uns.ac.id commit to user independently, although his knowledge of the foreign language is still rudimentary. The learner becomes secure enough to take criticism from the teacher. He must learn how to elicit from the knower the advanced level of linguistic knowledge the knower possesses. And 5 Independent,in which learners refine their understanding of register as well as grammatical correct language use. They may become counselors to less advanced students while profiting from contact with their original knower. Based on Richard and Rodgers2001: 90-98 there are some key principles which differentiate Community Language Learning CLL from other approachesmethods. The most important principle is that CLL tries to remove any barriers within the students’ psychological state. Students should be made to feel secure, less anxious and unthreatened before accepting the lesson. Teacher and students are regarded as whole persons, they share about their learning experience to allow learners to get to know one another and to build community. The teacher acts more as a counselor who really listens to them and understands what they are saying. Group works where students are encouraged to cooperate rather than to compete are generally suggested, but the teacher maintains the role of an active facilitator to guide the group works so that the activities are engaging. This method is based on humanistic approach which includes the emotions and feelings of the learner. The two most basic principle which underlie the kind of learning that can take place in the Community Language Learning are summed up in the following phrases: 1 ‘Learning is person,’ which means that whole-person learning of another language takes place best in relationship of trust, perpustakaan.uns.ac.id commit to user support, and cooperation between teacher and students and among students; and 2 ‘Learning is dynamic and creative’, which means that learning is a living and developmental process Larsen and Freeman, 2000: 105. To prove its effectiveness, the researcher compares Community Language Learning with Situational Language Teaching. In Situational Language Teaching, speech is regarded as the basic of language, and structure is viewed as being at the heart of speaking ability Richards and Rogers, 2001: 40. The form of language that is taught is realistic, all words and sentences must grow out of some real or imagined situations the actual situation. Thus, the meaning of the words that are bound with a situation where they are used. Learners know the meaning of the word “board”, not because they’ve been looking at the dictionary, but because they have learned the word in the situation. According to Richards and Rodgers 2001: 39, there are several main characteristics of Situational Language Teaching whichhighlight the approach.Language teaching begins with the spoken language,material is taught orally before it is presented in written form. The target language is the language of the classroom. New language points are introduced and practiced situationally. Vocabulary selection procedures are allowed to ensure that an essential general service vocabulary covered. Items of grammar are graded following the principle that simple forms should be taught before complex ones. Reading and writing are introduced once a sufficient lexical and grammatical basis is established. Both of the methodshave their own characteristics, advantages and disadvantages. Community Language Learning is a method which combines perpustakaan.uns.ac.id commit to user innovative learning tasks and activities with conventional ones. Nagaraj, P. 2009:177. Whereas Situational Language Teaching is concerned with the pattern of the sentence or structural, the students always taught the structures within the sentences. In situational language teaching is concerned with the form, the students are drilled to make a good pattern of sentences. Although it might also be student-centered in conducting its activities, those activities will be meaningless because the spoken materials used have already been prepared before and the teacher drills the students so that the students cannot explore and elaborate the content of communication delivered. From those statements, it can be concluded that Community Language Learning focuses more on the process to get good product, whereas SituationalLanguageTeaching focuses solely on the product. Besides, community language learning is concerned more on fluency rather than accuracy. The teacher let the students explore their knowledge and speak up more in the classroom without being worried of making mistakes in grammar and pronunciation. On the other hand, situational language teaching is concerned more with accuracy. The students are supposed to produce spoken language accurately in grammar and pronunciation. One of the factors that prevent the students from speaking ability is having lack of self confidence. A lack of self-confidence is not necessarily permanent but it can be if it is not addressed. Self-confidence is another key to successful speaking. It has an important impact on speaking development. Therefore, teachers have to raise students’ self-confidence, since it can enhance perpustakaan.uns.ac.id commit to user performances and support students to learn more effectively and actively. So, by having high self-confidence, students will give hard effort to achieve their success. Brown 2001: 62 states that Learners’ belief that they indeed are fully capable of accomplishing a task is at least partially a factor in their eventual success in attaining the task. As a teacher we should sustain students’ self- confidence and make them belief on their abilities in achieving speaking skill in English.Anthony 2003: 5 states that one of the principle requisites for change and a self-confidence personality is to satisfy your own need first its means by understanding and loving yourself.Anotherdefinition of self-confidence “What is Self Confidence”, para. 3 centres on being assertive, on getting what you want. This is about standing up for yourself, about having the presence, the personal power, if you like, to regard yourself as equal to others and to behave in a way that reflect this. Analysing the previous definitions above, it can be concluded that self confidence is an attitude that is characterized by positive believe, the abilities to understand and loving yourself and being assertive.

B. Problem Identification