computer and internet in their daily live affect the way how they choose the kinds of out-of-class language activities.
In other words, teenagers are different. They are neither children nor the adults. They bring to the classroom the language engagement situation in a
unique set of cognitive, emotional, social factors which is different from children and adults. They spend the time to engage in language activities outside the
classroom in a unique way also. They do the language activities differently. In so many ways, teenagers are the same like all learners. They respond to different
forms of motivation, they take in language and try to make sense of it, they struggle with pronunciation and remembering vocabulary. However, there are still
some important differences mostly in the affective aspect that need to be highlighted as this study employed for.
4. The Previous Studies on out-of-class English Language Activities
The previous studies on out-of-class English learning activities reveal some different aspects. Some studies reveal that out-of-class language activities
can support English skills. Some other studies emphasize the way how students do the out-of-class activities for pleasure and tend to do the activities in passive
activities. Benson 2011 argues that students who engage in out-of-class language
activities show more initiative in creating opportunities for learning and using foreign languages than their teacher notice. Similarly, Rubin 1975, Naiman et al.
1978, O‟Malley and Chamot 1990, and Oxford 1990; all highlight the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
importance of the out-of-class language activities employed voluntarily by learners outside the language classroom. As described by Naiman et al 1978,
learners are identified as those who involve themselves actively in the language learning task in a number of different ways. These including adding related
language learning activities to their regular classroom input. The study of Suh, Wasanasomsithi, Short, and Majid 1999 to the
students at Indiana University found similar results. This study used student interviews to examine what kind of out-of-class language activities the students
participated in and whether they thought they were successful or unsuccessful in
improving their English conversation skills. The findings indicated that the students relied mostly on independent leisure activities. Some students stated that
the activities improved their listening comprehension. Watching television was the most common independent activity that the students participated in out of the
classroom. The students indicated that watching television and going to movies improved their conversation skills. However, what seemed to be helpful for one
student was not helpful for another in the learning process. This study points out the important fact that different English activities used outside of the classroom
will be preferred by and beneficial to different kinds of students. Hyland 2004 in her large study on 228 trainees and practicing ESL
teachers in Hong Kong examined their activities using English out of the classroom. She found that respondents use English out of the classroom to
improve their English but also engaged in independent activities. The most frequent activities are writing emails, reading academic books, and surfing the
internet, followed by watching videos, reading newspapers, watching TV programs and listening to songs. In other words, the learners in her study rarely
engaged in activities involving face-to-face interaction, especially outside the work or study environment. They had a tendency to focus on those activities
which did not involve face-to-face contact. In different contexts, where the target language is a foreign language,
Pickard 1996 claims that German students tend to choose activities involving the receptive skill such as reading and listening rather than the productive skills, but
are also influenced by whether the activity is intrinsically interesting to them. There have been also some studies within the Hong Kong context, Yap 1998
looked at the out-of-class use of English of 18 secondary school students and found that the students tended to engaged in receptive rather that productive
activities, including reading newspapers and watching English language television. They found it hard to create opportunities for speaking and writing.
Freeman 1999 compares language learning activities of a group of learners of French and a group of EFL learners, both at the British university. He
finds that both groups spent large amounts of time on out-of-class learning, but the EFL learners spend longer 88 of their language learning time on these
activities. Freeman suggested that this made out-of-class learning an aspect of language learning whose impact needed further investigation. He also pointed out
that in order for the time and effort spent on learning the language outside the classroom to have a positive impact, there was a need for students to find the most
effective ways to use this time. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Previous studies on out-of-class language indicate that there are many English language learners who do not take advantages of English language
activities outside of the classroom and miss the potential time to improve their language skills. Moreover, even though learners do practice and use English
outside of class time, it is within a limited scope of activities and most often done individually.
There has been also a great consistency of receptive skills listening and writing being the most widely used out-of-class language learning activities as
stated by Pickard 1996, Pearson 2004, Hyland 2004, Al-Otaibi 2004, Chausanachoti 2009, Marefat and Barbari 2009. Productive skills, such as
speaking and writing, are not considered since the opportunities to use them outside the class are severely limited. However, given the small number of
sampling, such conclusion should be made cautiously. In brief, the previous studies in out-of-class learning activities were
conducted mainly in other countries and for adult learners. Another aspect in the previous studies that the studies on out-of-class language activities have not really
considered in detail is the out-of-class language activities conducted by younger or teenager in Indonesia.
T here has been a study about the Senior High Students‟ out-of-class
learning activities in Bandung. The study conducted by Ihsan 2012 describes
out-of-class language learning activities employed by 59 senior high school students in Bandung. It is found that the most popular activities are receptive
skills of listening and reading indicating that these Indonesian students are largely passive learners of English.
There is also one study conducted by Lamb 2002 who investigated Indonesia
‟s poor learning conditions in a provincial area. Building on his previous quantitative research on learning strategies, this exploratory research aims to look
deeper into what enables students to learn English under difficult circumstances. 16 undergraduate students from different faculties participated in the interview.
From the analysis, it is revealed that opportunities to use English in a meaningful communication outside the class are exceedingly rare. This might be due to the
negative images constructed by society to those who speak English in public – the
same problem faced by students in Hong Kong Hyland, 2004.
B. Theoretical Framework
In this theoretical framework section, the researcher will show the relevant theories mentioned in the theoretical description to answer the research question.
The question is related to the kinds of out-of-class language activities that the eighth grade students of Joannes Bosco Junior High School engaged in.
To understand the meaning of the out-of-class language activities, the definition of out-of-class language activities is used. In order to clasify the kinds
of out-of-class language activities done by the eighth grade students of Joannes Bosco
Junior High School, Benson‟s 2011 frameworks are used. Benson‟s kinds of activities, namely, self-instruction activities, naturalistic activities, self-directed
