STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON TEACHERS’ INTERPERSONAL SKILLS AT ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH YOGYAKARTA
STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON TEACHERS’ INTERPERSONAL SKILLS
AT ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH YOGYAKARTA
A Skripsi
Submitted to the Faculty of Language Education
As a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain
the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Lisa Noviyanti
20120540017
English Education Department
Faculty of Language Education
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
Abstract
Teachers’ interpersonal skill is an important thing on students’ learning.
Teachers should be able to develop a good interaction with their students. This
research aims to identify students’ perception on teachers’ interpersonal skills at
EED UMY. The research question is “What are students’ perceptions on teachers’
interpersonal skills at EED UMY”. To know the students’ perceptions on teachers’
interpersonal skills, the research used qualitative research methodology.
This research used interview to collect the data from the students. There were
six participants, two male and four female, who participated in this research. To
analyze the data, this research employed open coding, axial coding, and selective
coding. This research wanted to know about students’ perception based on the
following categories 1) perception on teachers’ communication skills, 2)
perception on teachers’ relationship skills, 3) perception on teachers’ motivational
role skills, and 4) perception on teachers’ teamwork skills.
The result of the data gathered indicated that EED UMY teachers have good
communication skill in the classroom. The teachers also respect on students’
enquiry in learning process. Moreover, all of the participants have different
perception about teachers’ relationship in the classroom. The participants agreed
that good relationship among teachers and students in the classroom can impact
on students’ motivation in learning. Furthermore, most of the participants have
similar perception about teachers’ motivational role and teachers’ teamwork.
Based on students’ perception, EED UMY teachers give motivation to the
students. Finally, EED UMY teachers can build teamwork between teachers and
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students in the classroom like organize the class and also make an agreement
about the rules of the class. The students argue that their teachers accommodate
their opinions about the role of the class.
Keywords: teachers’ interpersonal skill, teachers’ communication skill, teachers’
relationship skill, teachers’ motivation skill, teachers’ teamwork skill
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Chapter One
Introduction
This research was intended to investigate the students’ perception on
teachers’ interpersonal skills at English Education Department of Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. This chapter presents the research background,
statement of the problem, research question, purpose of the research, significance
of the research, and outline of the research.
Background of the Research
The majority of people consider the key to success in learning process
depends on the quality of teacher. According to Whitaker (2004), the main
variable in the classroom is not the student, but the teacher. Great teachers have
high expectations for their students, but even higher expectations for themselves.
It means that teachers determine the quality of the students. The higher qualities
of teachers in teaching would be succeeding learning process.
Teachers should increase their quality in teaching. Murati (2015) mentioned
that “the teacher is the leader and organizer of educational process, because he
knows pedagogy, didactics and teaching methods.” (p.76). It means that teacher is
the person who should be able to teach and know more about teaching and
learning. Teachers should be able to educate their students and organize learning
system.
According to Whitty (1996), there are two sets of qualities that should be
possessed to be successful and professional teacher, including professional
characteristics and professional competences. In professional characteristics,
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teachers need to have four aspects to be successful in teaching, namely
professional value, personal and professional development, communication and
good relationship between teacher to teacher or teacher to student. While
professional competence includes knowledge and understanding of children;
teachers also need to have advantage knowledge on subject matter; teachers need
to know and understand about curriculum and also teachers need to know about
education system or roles of teachers. Liakopoulou (2011) states that main
components in teachers’ competence are interpersonal skills, classroom
procedures and subject knowledge. Interpersonal skill is the ability of someone to
interact with others, make good relationship and communicate with others. Based
on the explanations above, interpersonal skill is one of component of teachers’
competence and characteristics that should be possessed by teachers.
There is another reason why this research is important to conduct. Based on
a survey at The Curriculum Centre of Education Department of Indonesia (PKD)
the key success of the teachers are 80% on mindset or soft skill and 20% that on
technical skill or hard skill. Based on the survey, the way to succeed of teachers in
teaching is that they should have high soft skill. In other hand, according to
Sembiring (2015), there are two components of soft skill namely intrapersonal
skill and interpersonal skill. Intrapersonal skill is the ability to organize one self,
while interpersonal skill is the ability to interact with other people. Considering
that the teachers’ soft skill is important to succeed the teaching, the teacher should
optimize their soft skill in interacting with their colleagues, other people and also
their students.
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Teachers need interpersonal skills to succeed in their profession.
Interpersonal skills are required by teacher to facilitate the understanding of
teaching. According to Medley and Shannon (2001), the development of
interpersonal skills not only enhances the teachers’ potential, but will also
improve the quality of teachers. It means that interpersonal skills are required in
every aspects of the teaching process.
In Indonesia, there was a new case in Ternate that was found on
Merdeka.com (2015), there was a teacher who hit his student. That teacher
seemed to forget that his jobs were to educate, teach, guide, train and be a good
model to their students. The reason of the teacher to hit his student stole because
his students steal his friends’ money. The reason was preposterous because
according to Muqowim (2012), one of characteristics of teachers who have good
interpersonal skills is being able to be a mediator. The incident above shows that
the teacher could not be able to be a good mediator for their students.
In teaching and learning process teachers should know what students need.
Students have high expectation from the teachers. Students consider that teachers
know everything in life. They also learn everything from their teachers. Teachers
do not only transfer their knowledge, but also educate, advice and become model.
According Carpenter and Murray (2013), success of teachers in teaching, like
transferring knowledge, educating and also becoming model to students is
affected by interpersonal skills that the teachers have.
There are some issues in English Education Department (EED) of UMY that
relates to teachers’ interpersonal skill. Based on the researcher’s experiences,
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when there are teachers at EED UMY who have poor interpersonal skill, it also
impacts on the students. The students feel afraid to interact with the teachers. The
impacts were students feel afraid to interact with their teachers; students feel bad
to communicate with their teacher and also students feel lazy to join the class. In
other experience, the researcher also find the teachers are always wise to the
students.
Interpersonal skill was important to be researched in EED UMY because it
could reflect their competence in teaching based on students’ view points. To
investigate the students’ perception on teachers’ interpersonal skill in EED UMY,
the researcher conducted research entitled “Students’ Perception on Teachers’
Interpersonal Skills at English Education Department of Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta”.
Statement of the Problem
The role of teachers in learning process is important. The roles of teachers
are to be a good model, educator and to be a facilitator to their student. To
succeed in their profession, the teacher should have good interpersonal skill in
their selves. Interpersonal skills are important to be owned by teachers. According
to Carpenter and Murray (2013), interpersonal skills include attributes of
empathizing and working productively with students from a wide range of
backgrounds, listening to differing points of view before making a decision,
developing and contributing positively to teams and giving and receiving
constructive feedback to or from work colleagues and others. It means
interpersonal skills of teachers can influence the ways of teachers in teaching. The
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positive interpersonal skills of a teacher can bring positive atmosphere in learning.
It also has impacts to students in learning.
In English Education Department of UMY, there were some students felt
afraid to interact with their teachers because they thought their teachers did not
want to interact with them. The students felt afraid to interact with their teachers
because they were not confident to communicate with their teachers. Students
admited it happen because the communication between teachers and students
rarely happened. If the teachers could build good communication with their
students, the students might not feel afraid anymore.
There was another fact in EED of UMY from researcher’s point of view.
There were many students felt very comfortable to interact with their teachers.
Most of students had good relationship with the teachers. They felt comfortable to
share everything with their teachers because the students considered their teachers
were open minded. It showed that EED UMY’s teachers could interact with the
students.
Based on explanations above, teachers’ interpersonal skills had many
impacts on students’ learning process. It could be seen at EED UMY, there were
possibilities teachers at EED of UMY with good interpersonal skill and also there
were teachers with poor interpersonal skill. Therefore, this research was important
to conduct. The researcher wanted to know students’ opinions about teachers’
interpersonal skill in English Education Department of UMY.
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Limitation of the Problem
Regarding with the teaching and learning process, there were large areas
related to teachers in EED UMY that could be researched namely, the method of
learning, design of instruction and also teacher’s soft skill or teachers’
interpersonal skill. However, in this research the researcher focused on students’
perceptions on teachers’ interpersonal skills at English Education Department,
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta especially on communication skill of
teachers, relationship skill, motivation skill, and ability of team work (Lievens and
Sackett, 2012; Wubbels, Brok, Tartwijk, Levy, 2012). To make this research more
focused, the researcher limited the research about teacher’s interpersonal skills
during the learning process inside the classroom.
Research Question
Based on the research background, this research has a research question that
is going to be answered :
What are students’ perceptions on teachers’ interpersonal skills at English
Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta?
Purpose of the Research
Based on research question, the purpose of this research is:
To identify the students’ perceptions on teachers’ interpersonal skills at
English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta.
Significance of the Research
The results of this research are expected to benefit the following:
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Teachers. EED UMY teachers can use the results of this research to
develop their interpersonal skills, help them engage student motivation and make
learning environment more comfortable for students and teachers. The result of
this research also can make teachers become aware to build good communication,
relationship and good teamwork with their students. By fixing their interpersonal
skill, they automatically develop their teaching professionalism.
Students. Students may use the information in this research to learn more
about interpersonal skill needed by teacher in teaching and learning process. The
students also can become aware on the importance of teachers’ interpersonal skill.
EED of UMY faculty preferred their students to become a teacher in the future, so
the result of this research can help students to know more about interpersonal
skills like communication skills, relationship skills, motivation skills and also
teamwork skills
Other Researchers. This research is hoped to provide inspiration for other
researchers who will conduct research which is related to interpersonal skill like
communicative teacher, public communication or also teacher-student proximity.
Outline of Research
This research consists of five chapters, such as introduction, literature
review, methodology, finding and discussion, conclusion and recommendation.
Chapter One discussed about the introduction of the research. This chapter
consists of background, statement of the problem, limitation of the problem,
research question, purpose of the research, significance of the research,and outline
of the research.
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Chapter Two presented the review of related literature. It will give
explanation about two parts namely theoretical framework as well as literature
review. Theoretical framework consists of fundamental theories that underpin this
research, while literature review tends to explain some studies that support the
study. The researcher puts several previous studies related to the current research.
Chapter Three discussed about research methodology. In this chapter are
research design, participants and setting, data collection method, and data analysis
technique.
Chapter Four discussed about the finding and discussion. This chapter
explains the findings of the research question in detail.
Chapter Five discussed conclusion and recommendation. This chapter
consisted of 2 sub-chapters which are conclusion and recommendation to obtain
the solution.
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Chapter Two
Literature Review
In this chapter, the researcher would like to discuss the theories related to
the research. This chapter includes the theoretical description and the conceptual
framework. The theoretical description presents the discussion of any literature
related to students’ perceptions on teachers’ interpersonal skills. The conceptual
framework summaries all relevant theories, which help the researcher solves the
researcher problem.
Theoretical Description
In this theoretical description, the researcher would like to discuss the
theories which include students’ perceptions on teachers’ interpersonal skills.
Perception. The understanding about perception can be derived from some
sources.
Perception is process by which become aware of objects, events, and
especially people through your senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing.
Perception is an active, not a passive process. Your perception result from
what exist in the outside world and from your own experiences, desires, needs
and wants, love and hatreds (DeVito, 2004, p.91)
Romanov (2011) also argued that perception includes senses, feelings, ideas,
thoughts and theories. In addition, George and Jones (2013) perception is a
process by which individuals select, organize, and interpret the input from their
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sense (vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste) to give meaning and order to the
world around them. In conclusion, with those definitions, we can conclude that
perception is the opinion of someone in conscious mental to decide something,
feel or also to interpret something.
Teachers’ Competence
Teacher should strengthen their competence with their task as an educator.
Usman (2005) mentions there are four competences that the teachers should be
possessed, namely pedagogy competence, personality competence, social
competence and professional competence. The four of competences are
interconnected each other. These competences can be categorised into two, hard
competence and soft competence. Hard competence includes pedagogy
competence and professional competence. Meanwhile, soft competences are
personality competence and social competence (Schulz, 2008).
Teacher competence on a large scale which must be owned in accordance
with Indonesian Republic law section 14 year 2005 includes the competence of
pedagogy, personality and professional obtained by the profession education.
There are experts’ say that personality competence is the most important, but it
does not mean pedagogy and professional competence are unimportant.
According to Kherunian (2013), the personality competence is the basis for
pedagogy and professional competence. Therefore, personality competence is the
main key for teachers to have pedagogy and professional competence.
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According to Celik (2011), teachers’ competence is descriptive of
qualitative nature of teacher behaviour appearing to be entirely meaningful. Celik
defines a teachers’ competence is the ability of teacher to responsibly perform
their duties appropriately. Ciechanowska (2010) mentions there are three
definitions of teachers’ competences. First, teachers’ competence is the ability of a
teacher to realize the planned educational aim. Second, teachers’ competence is
the real characteristic of a teacher’s personality showing the way to create fixed
educational purpose. Third, teachers’ competence is the conditioned behaviour to
reach the educational purpose.
According Brekelmans, Korthagen, Wubbels and Koster (2005) teachers’
competences are aptitude, ability and skill owned by someone having a job to
teach a student to have good personality like the educational purpose. In
Indonesian Republic law no 14 year 2005, it is explained that competence is a set
of knowledge, skill and behaviour which must be owned, perceived, and mastered
by a teacher in undertaking their professional duty. Teachers personality have
contributed enough to the success of education, especially in learning activities
and also teachers personality have significant influence on the formation of
private students. Good personality of teacher also can encourage students to learn
enthusiastically.
Hard skills. Hard skills are the skills that people use to do a job. Hard skills
are tangible skills that people learn in the school and utilize at both work and life,
Arat (2014). In other words, “hard skills are mastery of the science, technology
and engineering skills that are associated with the field science” (Rokhmawan,
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2012, p. 51). The ways to master hard skills of teacher are the abilities in
mastering teaching technique and control the field of knowledge. In other words
the teachers that have good hard skill certainly have wide knowledge and also be
able to teach as well.
Soft skills. There are many experts defining what soft skill is. Schulz (2008)
argues soft skills refer to the cluster of personality traits, social grace, facility with
language, personal habits, friendliness and optimism that mark people to varying
degree. Similarly, Ridder, Meysman, Oluwagbemi and Abeel (2014) defines soft
skills are the abilities of people to have good manners, optimism, common sense,
a sense of humor, empathy, and the ability to collaborate and negotiate with
others. Meanwhile Robles (2012) states that soft skills are critical for productive
performance in today’s workplace, current and future business leaders or
emphasizing the development of soft skill.
Soft skills are the abilities of humans in communication with others and
work in team. Soft skill also the abilities of someone to convey ideas, so that
others people can understand the messages that people express and also the ways
to overcome stress (Muqowim, 2012). Soft skills can complement hard skills,
which are the technical requirements of job. It means that soft skills more related
to the psychological skill of people.
Soft skill can help teachers in teaching process. Sudana (2014) defines
teachers who have soft skill in teaching can become a role model to students. The
teachers can develop students’ attitude. Teacher is a motivator to their students. It
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means that the teachers that have soft skills can motivate to students to build their
confident in learning. Teachers that have soft skill in teaching are also able to
become an innovator to give some ideas in learning to their students. Furthermore,
soft skill of teachers in teaching also can help teachers to become a leader. It
means that the teachers are able to give some directive or support students to get
best achievement in learning.
There are two experts said that soft skill consisted of two parts, namely
intrapersonal skill and interpersonal skill. According to Muqowim (2012),
intrapersonal skills are the ability to regulate oneself. In other words, intrapersonal
skills are more relating to someone recognize themself, motivate self, work hard
and have ambition. Meanwhile, interpersonal skills are more related to someone’s
competence in interacting with other people, like showing empathy to the other
people, building good communication with others, building relationship with
other or also motivating others. According to Vijaya (2013), intrapersonal skills
include self-understanding, values, desires to learn and self-management.
Interpersonal skills include teamwork skill, adaptability of environment and social
skill.
Interpersonal Skills
Definition of interpersonal skills. Human is a social species who cannot
live alone. People certainly need others to interact. In interacting with others,
people require certain skill that is interpersonal skill. There are some definition of
interpersonal skills from the experts. According to Lievens and Sacket (2012), an
interpersonal skill refers to skills related to social sensitivity, relationship
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building, working with others, listening and communication. Interpersonal skills
also in define as skills to recognize and respond to properly feeling, attitudes and
behaviour, motivate and respect the wishes of others. In other words interpersonal
skills are the ability to respond or understand the attitude of others as well.
Teachers as the powerful element in teaching process should be able to build
good communication with their students. According to Med (2007, p.152),
“interpersonal skills are those essential skills involved in dealing with the relating
to other people, largely on a one-to-o2ne basis”. It means that teachers who have
interpersonal skills are important. It can help teachers to build good
communication both for them and their students.
Most experts say that interpersonal skills are the ability of someone to
interact with others. Matin (2010) also argues that interpersonal skill is the skill
that is used by a person to properly interact with others. Meanwhile, Marvin and
Irma (2008) mention a people that have interpersonal skill certainly has a keen
ability to others as individuals. In other words, interpersonal skills are the set of
abilities enabling a person to interact positively and work effectively with others.
Components of Interpersonal Skill
There are many researches explaining about components of interpersonal
skills that teacher should have (Lievens and Sackett, 2012; Wubbels, Brok,
Tartwijk, Levy, 2012). It can be summarized from those researches, that the
majority of components found are: communication skill, relationship building
skill, motivating skill and doing teamwork skill.
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Communication skill. In teaching and learning process, the teachers should
have communication skill to communicate with their students. The teacher should
be able to build good communication between teacher to teachers and also teacher
to students. According to Hussainy, Jandaghi, Karimi and Hamidizadeh (2012), to
become a professional teacher, the teachers should be able to develop their
communication skills. It means that, communication skill is one of important
thing of teacher in teaching process.
Communication is an integral feature of human activities. It means that
people who have the ability to communicate can easily interact with others.
Communication can be described as the process of transferring and receiving
ideas, information, and message (Jain, 2013). Moreover, Matin et al (2010) also
argues that communication is transmission of meaning from one to other or to
many people, whether verbally or non-verbally. It means that communication is
something crucial to make other people understand the meaning of our ideas.
Interpersonal communication skills are vitals in workplace where new job
requirement, new skills, and new ways of working with people are changing at
drastically (Kambeya, 2008). In learning process, the teachers’ duty is also
become an educator for their students. Teachers should able to communicate with
their students. It means that the teachers should have good communication.
Interpersonal communication of teachers can be a key element of an effective
school (Hall, 2000).
There are some experts explaining about the principals of interpersonal
communication of teachers. According to Kambeya (2008) there are four
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principals of teachers’ interpersonal communication, namely they identified faceto-face communication, written and verbal, support and caring, and trust and
support. Furthermore, according to Slater (2005), attitude and productivity of
teachers are certainly affected by the principals’ interpersonal communication of
teachers.
According to Brener (2003), one of the most important issues in
interpersonal communication skill is listening skill. It means that, communication
skill is the ability to deliver the message that they speak, so the students can
understand easier. In other words, both teachers and students should be able to
build good communication as a communicator and as a listener. In line, according
to Rui (2007) in interpersonal communication situations there is always a twoway flow of communication. In other words, there is a person as a sender the
message and another person as a receiver the message.
There are the principles of communication skill. According Muqowim
(2012), there are five principles of communication skills that abbreviated as
REACH which means respect, empathy, audiable, clarity and humble. Respect is
mutual respect for each other with detail of every opinions, proposals, and
rejection should be listened. In other words, respect is more appreciate each other.
Empathy is the ability to listen or understand others before be heard or understand
the person. Audible is media uses that may be understood others. Clarity is clarity
message, it means that our words not ambiguous. Humble an attitude of humility,
serving, appreciate, be a good listener, accepting criticism, self-control and
placing greater interest.
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According to Hairuzila (2009), communication is the most important part in
life. One of the way to make effective communication is confidence. Effective
communication have some points in communicating, which is the the body
language, pitch of the voice and the use of appropriate words. It is vital to a
person to be able to communicate effectively and understandable by others. It
usually can be carried by people who have interpersonal skill.
Markovic and Axmann (2007) mention that “the body has its own
language. The body language can be in accordance with the words-the verbal
language, but there can also be a discrepancy”. It means that in communication
the people not only explain their ides with their speak but also people can more
detail their ides with their body language. Markovic and Axmann also said that
most of people often believe body language more than believe the words.
In conclusion, one of a component of interpersonal skill that should be
owned teachers is communication skill. Good communication between teachers
and students which teachers could deliver lessons to good and clear on each
learning. Good communication will produce a message that easily to understand.
Relationship building skill. Relationship building including one in
interpersonal skill should be owned a teacher. According to Sardiman (2004),
there are some components that influence the result of learning process, namely,
teachers organize matter, method applied and the media that have used. Beside
that, one of important factors that succeed in learning process is relationship
between teachers and students.
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Teacher should be able to build positive relationship between their students.
Positive relationship between teachers and students influence students’ motivation
and outcome. Therefore teachers suggest having positive connection with their
student. Hamre and Pianta also mention, “when teachers form positive bonds with
the students, classroom becomes spaces in which students can engage in
academically and socially productive ways” (Hamre & Pianta, 2001).
To measure interpersonal relationship between teachers and students it can
be seen from a teacher that gives little attention in the form of student teachers’
involvement in the game, giving gifts to the students. So the teachers can also
express concern over the absence of the students to establish relationship with
students (Medler, 2010).
The skill of giving motivation. According to Muqowim (2012), the success
of an activity is strongly influenced by motivation, thus the ability to confer
motivation very important owned by teachers in order to obtain success in
learning process.
The role of teachers as motivator is important lies in order to increase
passion in activities student learning. Teachers should be able to stimulate and
give thrust and reinforcement to increase the potential students in learning and to
cultivate creativity students who can be a useful tool to the learning process.
Sardiman (2004) argues as for one of the reasons motivation skill including into
interpersonal skill that must be held by a teacher is because motivation skill
related to the essence work educate that require skillfulness social, related to
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performance in the sense personalization and socialization self. Based on the
words before that interpersonal skill more reflect with social someone including
teachers.
The skill of doing team work. In lives most of people have already joined
certain organization or association, while in organization the people requires to
have leaderships’ attitude.
Success of interpersonal can also be seen than success the person in building
a team. According to Pachauri and Yadav (2014), teamwork is the ability to build
a good rapport, interact and work effectively with others, and also recognize and
respect others’ attitude, behaviour and beliefs. Someone who can afford to build a
team on ascertained have souls of leadership. Teachers who can afford to build a
team have a responsibility that high to the learning process and to the environment
and also ability to give contribution to the planning and coordinate group work.
Muqowim (2012) states that the interpersonal skills that are widely accepted
in Indonesia context are motivation skill, leadership skill, negotiation skill,
presentation skill, communication skill, relationship building skill, public
speaking skill, and self-marketing skill.
The Importance of Interpersonal Skill
Interpersonal skill is important skill that must be have by everyone. To
become a professional in their job, people should have interpersonal skill. For
example, to succeed in teaching the teachers should have good interpersonal skill.
The teachers need to understand what the students wanted. The teachers also
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should be able build good communication or interact with their students. If the
teacher did not have good interpersonal skill, they can not to build positive
communication or positive relationship with their students.
There are some benefits of teacher’s interpersonal skill in teaching process.
Duffy (2004) mentions there are some effects of teachers’ interpersonal skill, one
of the effect is reduce of students’ anxiety in learning process. Interpersonal skills
of teachers can make atmosphere of learning more comport and interesting. In
other words, teachers’ interpersonal skill influences of students learn effectively in
learning.
Another important factor of teachers’ interpersonal skill is good
communication between teachers and students can build positive relationship for
both. According to Syaefudin (2007), the relationship between teacher and
students is a tool a control the students at the school and outside the school. The
relationship between the teachers and students will be plaited carefully by the
presence of the good attitude of teachers in communicating, good in looking, the
mind-set of teacher in deciding the problems and responsibility of the teacher.
Teachers’ interpersonal skill is important to students in learning process.
According to Skinner and Belmot (1993), teachers’ interpersonal skill can
influence students’ attitude and students’ belief. If the teachers have good
interpersonal skill, it means that the teachers can build good interaction with their
students. It can influence the attitude of students when they interact to teacher or
when they interact with their other students.
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Teachers’ Interpersonal Skill and Students’ Learning
In learning process that adopts student centered approach the teachers
should have good communication skills. It can impacts to their students. One of
impacts is to students to develop students’ communication skill in inside class or
outside class. Jain argues “it is very important to make the learners comfortable
with the language they have to communicate in” (Jain, 2013, p. 78).
Teachers who have interpersonal skill also can become facilitator with their
students (Reeve, 2006). In learning process, students learn to listen, to say, to ask
questions and interact between teachers-students or students-students. If the
teachers have positive interpersonal skill they be able to become a good facilitator
for their students. They can be able to listen and answer everything that students
asked. They also be able to occur in fair between their students.
There are some activities that could be used to develop a communication
skill of teachers in learning process. Such as group work, task work and
information gap activities. These could be achieve through the following
activities: task-completion activities: puzzle, games, map-reading and other kinds
in classroom tasks in which the focus will be on ability to use communication
skills to complete a task (Jain, 2013).
According to Jain (2013), there are kinds of interpersonal communication
skill that can teachers use in learning process. First is information gathering
activities, like students will conduct survey, interview and searches in which they
will use the communication skill to collect information. Second, opinion-sharing
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activities are the activities where students compare values, opinions and beliefs.
Then, discussion/debate activities and the last one is oral presentation.
Interpersonal relationships between teachers and students have some effects
in students’ learning environment. Baker et al mention interpersonal relationship
both teachers and students enable students to feel safe and secure in their learning
environments (Baker et al, 2008). In other words, teachers’ interpersonal can
make students feel safe and comfort in learning process. There is another effect of
teachers’ interpersonal relationship in learning process. When teachers form
positive bonds with students, it can impact on classroom. Classroom becomes
supportive spaces in which students can engage in academically and socially
productive way (Hamre and Pianta, 2001). Therefore, teachers’ interpersonal skill
could presences closeness, warmth and positivity in learning environment.
Learners in the process to get the best outcome need a teacher to support
them in order to reach the highest possible achievement. Teachers who have good
interpersonal skill that students needed to reach it. One of the skills is as a
facilitator to their students. According to Yan (2012), as facilitators, teachers need
to do all the efforts to help make the learning easier and motivate learners to play
to the best of their potentials, which includes: helping learners to acquire the
knowledge and skills and motivate learner to learn actively.
Interpersonal skill of teacher is one of fundamental to the process of
learning, (Burkill et al, 2000). It means that, teachers’ interpersonal skill is the
basic of learning process. Elston (2010) also argues that interpersonal skill of
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teachers will play a vital role in an individuals’ education. Many of the learning
situation that higher education students are exposed to rely heavily on these types
of skill.
Review of Related Research
There were many researches that involve interpersonal skills of teachers as
the main problem. Some of researches tried to connect teachers’ interpersonal
skills with students’ learning. One of the researches was conducted by Brok,
Levy, Brekelmans, Wubbels (2006) entitle “Teacher Interpersonal Behaviour and
Students’ Subject-Specific Motivation”. The research brought together insight
from research on teaching in specific subject, learning environments research and
effectiveness research by linking teacher interpersonal behaviour to students’
subject. They tried to investigate the added value of students’ perception of
teacher interpersonal behaviour on students’ subject specific motivation. The data
of 52 third-year ELF-classes (English as a Foreign Language; 1041 students),
taught by 32 secondary teachers, were included in the analyses. They used
multilevel analysis of variance to investigate the effect of teaching on motivation
and included several covariates as well. For all of the discerned subject-related
attitude variables - pleasure, relevance, confidence and effort, a positive and
strong effect was found for teacher Proximity. The results demonstrated the
significant role of teacher interpersonal behaviour in student motivation and the
importance of combining insights from various educational research disciplines.
24
Another research was conducted by Rani and Tyagi (2013) entitled “Effect
of Interpersonal Relationship on Attitude of Teacher Educators. An Empirical
Study”. This research finding was limited in clarifying interpersonal relationship
and its effect on the attitude of teachers. This research conducted an empirical
study on relationship between the interpersonal skills and the attitude of teachers.
The result of this research was good interpersonal relationship impact positively
on the attitude of the teacher educators. Therefore, it was essential to have strong
interpersonal relationship for the teachers especially teacher educators.
Conceptual Framework
Teachers must develop their interpersonal skill to interact with their
students. Teachers who have good interpersonal skill can affect students’ learning.
It can make students feel more comfortable in learning process. In English
Education of UMY there are two cases. First, there were some students who felt
afraid to interact with their teachers because they consider that their teacher was
not friendly to them. It made them afraid to communicate and build relation with
their teacher. Another case was some of students felt very comfortable with their
teachers in English Education Department of UMY. Most of them were interested
in joining the teachers’ class.
Teachers’ interpersonal skills and students’ learning is very closely related
each other. In learning process, teachers’ interpersonal skills have some impacts to
students’ learning. If the teachers have good interpersonal skill, it means that the
teachers can build communication between their students. Teachers who have
25
good interpersonal skills also can build relationship with their students, give
motivation and doing team work. One of the positive impacts of good
interpersonal skill of teacher is that students feel more confident. Nevertheless, if
the teachers have poor interpersonal skill, it can impact to students and then
students feel do not enjoyable in learning.
26
Figure 2.1. Conceptual Framework
Teachers’ Competence is
Important
Hard Skills
Soft Skills
Intrapersonal Skills
Kinds of Interpersonal Skills
Interpersonal Skills
The Teachers’ Interpersonal
Skills in EED UMY
1. Communication Skill
2. Relationship Skill
3. Motivation Skill
4. Teamwork Skill
?
27
Chapter Three
Methodology
Research method was a system or method of work to be done on a study.
The researcher was required to select and specify the appropriate method and
flexible in order to achieve its objectives.
This chapter presented the methodology used in this study which was
presented in four parts. First part presented the research design used in the
research. Second part presented the participants of this research. The third part
explained about data collection method. Finally fourth part presented data
analysis.
Research Design
The purpose of this study was to know the perception of students on the
interpersonal skill of the teachers of EED UMY. The participants in this research
explained their opinions about interpersonal skill of teachers in EED UMY. Based
on objectives above, the research design appropriate for this research was
qualitative research. Tewksbury (2009) also explained that qualitative research
method provided more emphasis on interpretation and providing someone with
complete views, looking at contexts, environmental and depth of understanding of
concepts. Creswell (2012) argued that qualitative research would be appropriate to
be employed when it would identify research participants’ opinion, believe, or
even perception. It means that qualitative research was aimed to reveal
participants’ opinions.
28
Based on explanation above, qualitative method was appropriate for this
research as it revealed EED students’ perception on teachers’ interpersonal skill.
Implementing this method, the researcher attempted to identify the students’
perception by collection the data through interview. Besides, it was also to gain
the deeper perception of students’ view point on teachers’ interpersonal skill at
EED UMY.
Setting of the Research
This research was conducted in English Education Department (EED) of
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. There were several reasons why the
researcher selected this department as the setting this research. First the researcher
had seen there was a phenomenon in EED UMY about teachers’ interpersonal
skill that impact to the students’ learning. It meant that this research is appropriate
to be conduct in EED UMY. Second the researcher as a student in EED UMY.
This provided accessibility to the researcher to get help by faculty members in
conducting the research. Third, EED UMY’s students are more likely to become a
teacher in the future. Based on those three reasons above, to choose EED UMY as
the setting of the research is appropriate and suitable.
Participants of the Research
The participants selected by random sampling. According to Creswell
(2008) random sampling research was all of the participants agreed to participate
with this research. It meant that the researcher will find the participants who were
really willing to be the participants of this research so they inclined to give the
29
more sincere and true information based on participants’s experience. The
participants were randomly selected in order to make the data gathered become
more valid.
There were six students participating in this research namely four female
and two male students. All participants were the students of EED UMY batch
2012. There were some reasons of choosing the students batch 2012 as the
participants. First, they had been learning at EED UMY for four years. They had
many experiences in communication with the teachers, motivational section and
also working together with their teachers. EED UMY students batch 2012 have
more experiences than students batch 2013 until 2015. They also knew teachers’
habit in teaching. It was an opportunity to the researcher to get more information
that relates to teachers’ interpersonal skill. Second, the participants were chosen
because they were willing to talk and easy to be accessed.
Instrument of the Research
The researcher used interview guidelines to help the researcher in
interviewing. Interview guidelines included some questions that the researcher
gave to the participants. There were four main questions in interview guideline
that the researcher asks to the participants. The first question, the researcher asked
about participants’ opinions on teachers’ communication skills in the classroom.
Second, the researcher asked about participants’ opinions on teachers’ relationship
in the classroom. Third, the researcher asked about teachers’ motivational role in
30
the classroom. Finally, the researcher asked about participants’ opinions on
teachers’ teamwork in the classroom.
During the interview, the researcher used mobile phone to record the
interview process with the participants. It also helped the researcher to transcribe
the interviews. Al-Yateem (2012, p.32) cited that “the recording can be viewed or
listened to repeatedly in case in doubt or during data analysis, and it also provides
a basis for reliability and validity”. It means that, when researcher and the
participant did interview, all of the sounds should be recorded. The reason was to
get reliability and validity of the data.
Data Collection Method
One-on-one interview was employed as the type of interview. It meant the
researcher and the participant was working face-to-face in the interview, one as a
interviewer and one as a participant. There were several reasons in using one-onone interview. First, the participant could feel more comfortable when he/she was
interviewed. The participants were also easier to answer researcher’s question
when they felt comfortable. According to Creswell (2008) by having one-on-one
interview, the data gathered would become more accurate because the participant
could communicate naturally, comfortably, and clearly so that the researcher
could ask if there was any misunderstanding on the questions asked. Second, on
one-on-one interview, the participants were more focused in interview. It was
opportunity for the researcher to get deep information and also the answers of
participants were not affected by other participants.
31
The researcher contacted all the participants through social media message
application such as BBM and WhatsApp application. It was to ask the students
whether they were willing to be participant or not. Then, the researcher made an
appointment about time and place to collect the data with the students willing to
be the participants. There were three participants willing to meet with the
researcher in college and the other participants wanted to meet in their boarding
house. The researcher visited the participants one by one to interview them.
There was no limitation time during the interview. If all the researcher’s
questions were all asked, the interview was also finished. It meant that, when the
researcher already got information related to teachers’ interpersonal skill, the
process of data collection was completed. In interviewing, the average of the time
to interview was five until seven minutes from all the participants.
While collecting the data, the researcher used Bahasa Indonesia in
interview. The reason in using Bahasa Indonesia was to make easier
communication both of the researcher and participants. According to Byrne &
Michelle (2001), the researcher must master communication skill. Good
communication in interview influences the participants’ answer, so the answer of
participants was not ambiguous. Bahasa Indonesia is the language that is
understood by both the research and the participants so that the researcher can get
the participants’ points more clearly.
32
Data Analysis
The last method to be explained in this chapter was data analysis. The steps
of analyzing the data was started by transcribing the interview result from
participants one by one from the data recorder. Then, after transcribing the
recording, the researcher did member checking. Doing member checking was
essential in order to make sure the validity of the data gathered. Member checking
was done by showing the script result to the respondents and asking them to check
whether the script results were really the same with the interview that they had
been done or not. Member checking was done in May 2016 and all of the
participants agreed with the researcher’s transcription, so there were no changes.
After doing the member checking, the researcher analyzed the by data using
thematic analysis. Thematic analysis was a process of data coding. In coding the
data, the researcher firstly analyzed the script of recording. It meant that the
researcher inferred what the participants meant by their answer in each question.
This activity was done in open coding. Then, after doing the open coding, the
researcher did axial coding. In axial coding, the researcher classified each item of
statement that has the same category into one interpretation. The last was se
AT ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH YOGYAKARTA
A Skripsi
Submitted to the Faculty of Language Education
As a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain
the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Lisa Noviyanti
20120540017
English Education Department
Faculty of Language Education
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
Abstract
Teachers’ interpersonal skill is an important thing on students’ learning.
Teachers should be able to develop a good interaction with their students. This
research aims to identify students’ perception on teachers’ interpersonal skills at
EED UMY. The research question is “What are students’ perceptions on teachers’
interpersonal skills at EED UMY”. To know the students’ perceptions on teachers’
interpersonal skills, the research used qualitative research methodology.
This research used interview to collect the data from the students. There were
six participants, two male and four female, who participated in this research. To
analyze the data, this research employed open coding, axial coding, and selective
coding. This research wanted to know about students’ perception based on the
following categories 1) perception on teachers’ communication skills, 2)
perception on teachers’ relationship skills, 3) perception on teachers’ motivational
role skills, and 4) perception on teachers’ teamwork skills.
The result of the data gathered indicated that EED UMY teachers have good
communication skill in the classroom. The teachers also respect on students’
enquiry in learning process. Moreover, all of the participants have different
perception about teachers’ relationship in the classroom. The participants agreed
that good relationship among teachers and students in the classroom can impact
on students’ motivation in learning. Furthermore, most of the participants have
similar perception about teachers’ motivational role and teachers’ teamwork.
Based on students’ perception, EED UMY teachers give motivation to the
students. Finally, EED UMY teachers can build teamwork between teachers and
vi
students in the classroom like organize the class and also make an agreement
about the rules of the class. The students argue that their teachers accommodate
their opinions about the role of the class.
Keywords: teachers’ interpersonal skill, teachers’ communication skill, teachers’
relationship skill, teachers’ motivation skill, teachers’ teamwork skill
vii
1
Chapter One
Introduction
This research was intended to investigate the students’ perception on
teachers’ interpersonal skills at English Education Department of Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. This chapter presents the research background,
statement of the problem, research question, purpose of the research, significance
of the research, and outline of the research.
Background of the Research
The majority of people consider the key to success in learning process
depends on the quality of teacher. According to Whitaker (2004), the main
variable in the classroom is not the student, but the teacher. Great teachers have
high expectations for their students, but even higher expectations for themselves.
It means that teachers determine the quality of the students. The higher qualities
of teachers in teaching would be succeeding learning process.
Teachers should increase their quality in teaching. Murati (2015) mentioned
that “the teacher is the leader and organizer of educational process, because he
knows pedagogy, didactics and teaching methods.” (p.76). It means that teacher is
the person who should be able to teach and know more about teaching and
learning. Teachers should be able to educate their students and organize learning
system.
According to Whitty (1996), there are two sets of qualities that should be
possessed to be successful and professional teacher, including professional
characteristics and professional competences. In professional characteristics,
2
teachers need to have four aspects to be successful in teaching, namely
professional value, personal and professional development, communication and
good relationship between teacher to teacher or teacher to student. While
professional competence includes knowledge and understanding of children;
teachers also need to have advantage knowledge on subject matter; teachers need
to know and understand about curriculum and also teachers need to know about
education system or roles of teachers. Liakopoulou (2011) states that main
components in teachers’ competence are interpersonal skills, classroom
procedures and subject knowledge. Interpersonal skill is the ability of someone to
interact with others, make good relationship and communicate with others. Based
on the explanations above, interpersonal skill is one of component of teachers’
competence and characteristics that should be possessed by teachers.
There is another reason why this research is important to conduct. Based on
a survey at The Curriculum Centre of Education Department of Indonesia (PKD)
the key success of the teachers are 80% on mindset or soft skill and 20% that on
technical skill or hard skill. Based on the survey, the way to succeed of teachers in
teaching is that they should have high soft skill. In other hand, according to
Sembiring (2015), there are two components of soft skill namely intrapersonal
skill and interpersonal skill. Intrapersonal skill is the ability to organize one self,
while interpersonal skill is the ability to interact with other people. Considering
that the teachers’ soft skill is important to succeed the teaching, the teacher should
optimize their soft skill in interacting with their colleagues, other people and also
their students.
3
Teachers need interpersonal skills to succeed in their profession.
Interpersonal skills are required by teacher to facilitate the understanding of
teaching. According to Medley and Shannon (2001), the development of
interpersonal skills not only enhances the teachers’ potential, but will also
improve the quality of teachers. It means that interpersonal skills are required in
every aspects of the teaching process.
In Indonesia, there was a new case in Ternate that was found on
Merdeka.com (2015), there was a teacher who hit his student. That teacher
seemed to forget that his jobs were to educate, teach, guide, train and be a good
model to their students. The reason of the teacher to hit his student stole because
his students steal his friends’ money. The reason was preposterous because
according to Muqowim (2012), one of characteristics of teachers who have good
interpersonal skills is being able to be a mediator. The incident above shows that
the teacher could not be able to be a good mediator for their students.
In teaching and learning process teachers should know what students need.
Students have high expectation from the teachers. Students consider that teachers
know everything in life. They also learn everything from their teachers. Teachers
do not only transfer their knowledge, but also educate, advice and become model.
According Carpenter and Murray (2013), success of teachers in teaching, like
transferring knowledge, educating and also becoming model to students is
affected by interpersonal skills that the teachers have.
There are some issues in English Education Department (EED) of UMY that
relates to teachers’ interpersonal skill. Based on the researcher’s experiences,
4
when there are teachers at EED UMY who have poor interpersonal skill, it also
impacts on the students. The students feel afraid to interact with the teachers. The
impacts were students feel afraid to interact with their teachers; students feel bad
to communicate with their teacher and also students feel lazy to join the class. In
other experience, the researcher also find the teachers are always wise to the
students.
Interpersonal skill was important to be researched in EED UMY because it
could reflect their competence in teaching based on students’ view points. To
investigate the students’ perception on teachers’ interpersonal skill in EED UMY,
the researcher conducted research entitled “Students’ Perception on Teachers’
Interpersonal Skills at English Education Department of Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta”.
Statement of the Problem
The role of teachers in learning process is important. The roles of teachers
are to be a good model, educator and to be a facilitator to their student. To
succeed in their profession, the teacher should have good interpersonal skill in
their selves. Interpersonal skills are important to be owned by teachers. According
to Carpenter and Murray (2013), interpersonal skills include attributes of
empathizing and working productively with students from a wide range of
backgrounds, listening to differing points of view before making a decision,
developing and contributing positively to teams and giving and receiving
constructive feedback to or from work colleagues and others. It means
interpersonal skills of teachers can influence the ways of teachers in teaching. The
5
positive interpersonal skills of a teacher can bring positive atmosphere in learning.
It also has impacts to students in learning.
In English Education Department of UMY, there were some students felt
afraid to interact with their teachers because they thought their teachers did not
want to interact with them. The students felt afraid to interact with their teachers
because they were not confident to communicate with their teachers. Students
admited it happen because the communication between teachers and students
rarely happened. If the teachers could build good communication with their
students, the students might not feel afraid anymore.
There was another fact in EED of UMY from researcher’s point of view.
There were many students felt very comfortable to interact with their teachers.
Most of students had good relationship with the teachers. They felt comfortable to
share everything with their teachers because the students considered their teachers
were open minded. It showed that EED UMY’s teachers could interact with the
students.
Based on explanations above, teachers’ interpersonal skills had many
impacts on students’ learning process. It could be seen at EED UMY, there were
possibilities teachers at EED of UMY with good interpersonal skill and also there
were teachers with poor interpersonal skill. Therefore, this research was important
to conduct. The researcher wanted to know students’ opinions about teachers’
interpersonal skill in English Education Department of UMY.
6
Limitation of the Problem
Regarding with the teaching and learning process, there were large areas
related to teachers in EED UMY that could be researched namely, the method of
learning, design of instruction and also teacher’s soft skill or teachers’
interpersonal skill. However, in this research the researcher focused on students’
perceptions on teachers’ interpersonal skills at English Education Department,
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta especially on communication skill of
teachers, relationship skill, motivation skill, and ability of team work (Lievens and
Sackett, 2012; Wubbels, Brok, Tartwijk, Levy, 2012). To make this research more
focused, the researcher limited the research about teacher’s interpersonal skills
during the learning process inside the classroom.
Research Question
Based on the research background, this research has a research question that
is going to be answered :
What are students’ perceptions on teachers’ interpersonal skills at English
Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta?
Purpose of the Research
Based on research question, the purpose of this research is:
To identify the students’ perceptions on teachers’ interpersonal skills at
English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta.
Significance of the Research
The results of this research are expected to benefit the following:
7
Teachers. EED UMY teachers can use the results of this research to
develop their interpersonal skills, help them engage student motivation and make
learning environment more comfortable for students and teachers. The result of
this research also can make teachers become aware to build good communication,
relationship and good teamwork with their students. By fixing their interpersonal
skill, they automatically develop their teaching professionalism.
Students. Students may use the information in this research to learn more
about interpersonal skill needed by teacher in teaching and learning process. The
students also can become aware on the importance of teachers’ interpersonal skill.
EED of UMY faculty preferred their students to become a teacher in the future, so
the result of this research can help students to know more about interpersonal
skills like communication skills, relationship skills, motivation skills and also
teamwork skills
Other Researchers. This research is hoped to provide inspiration for other
researchers who will conduct research which is related to interpersonal skill like
communicative teacher, public communication or also teacher-student proximity.
Outline of Research
This research consists of five chapters, such as introduction, literature
review, methodology, finding and discussion, conclusion and recommendation.
Chapter One discussed about the introduction of the research. This chapter
consists of background, statement of the problem, limitation of the problem,
research question, purpose of the research, significance of the research,and outline
of the research.
8
Chapter Two presented the review of related literature. It will give
explanation about two parts namely theoretical framework as well as literature
review. Theoretical framework consists of fundamental theories that underpin this
research, while literature review tends to explain some studies that support the
study. The researcher puts several previous studies related to the current research.
Chapter Three discussed about research methodology. In this chapter are
research design, participants and setting, data collection method, and data analysis
technique.
Chapter Four discussed about the finding and discussion. This chapter
explains the findings of the research question in detail.
Chapter Five discussed conclusion and recommendation. This chapter
consisted of 2 sub-chapters which are conclusion and recommendation to obtain
the solution.
9
Chapter Two
Literature Review
In this chapter, the researcher would like to discuss the theories related to
the research. This chapter includes the theoretical description and the conceptual
framework. The theoretical description presents the discussion of any literature
related to students’ perceptions on teachers’ interpersonal skills. The conceptual
framework summaries all relevant theories, which help the researcher solves the
researcher problem.
Theoretical Description
In this theoretical description, the researcher would like to discuss the
theories which include students’ perceptions on teachers’ interpersonal skills.
Perception. The understanding about perception can be derived from some
sources.
Perception is process by which become aware of objects, events, and
especially people through your senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing.
Perception is an active, not a passive process. Your perception result from
what exist in the outside world and from your own experiences, desires, needs
and wants, love and hatreds (DeVito, 2004, p.91)
Romanov (2011) also argued that perception includes senses, feelings, ideas,
thoughts and theories. In addition, George and Jones (2013) perception is a
process by which individuals select, organize, and interpret the input from their
10
sense (vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste) to give meaning and order to the
world around them. In conclusion, with those definitions, we can conclude that
perception is the opinion of someone in conscious mental to decide something,
feel or also to interpret something.
Teachers’ Competence
Teacher should strengthen their competence with their task as an educator.
Usman (2005) mentions there are four competences that the teachers should be
possessed, namely pedagogy competence, personality competence, social
competence and professional competence. The four of competences are
interconnected each other. These competences can be categorised into two, hard
competence and soft competence. Hard competence includes pedagogy
competence and professional competence. Meanwhile, soft competences are
personality competence and social competence (Schulz, 2008).
Teacher competence on a large scale which must be owned in accordance
with Indonesian Republic law section 14 year 2005 includes the competence of
pedagogy, personality and professional obtained by the profession education.
There are experts’ say that personality competence is the most important, but it
does not mean pedagogy and professional competence are unimportant.
According to Kherunian (2013), the personality competence is the basis for
pedagogy and professional competence. Therefore, personality competence is the
main key for teachers to have pedagogy and professional competence.
11
According to Celik (2011), teachers’ competence is descriptive of
qualitative nature of teacher behaviour appearing to be entirely meaningful. Celik
defines a teachers’ competence is the ability of teacher to responsibly perform
their duties appropriately. Ciechanowska (2010) mentions there are three
definitions of teachers’ competences. First, teachers’ competence is the ability of a
teacher to realize the planned educational aim. Second, teachers’ competence is
the real characteristic of a teacher’s personality showing the way to create fixed
educational purpose. Third, teachers’ competence is the conditioned behaviour to
reach the educational purpose.
According Brekelmans, Korthagen, Wubbels and Koster (2005) teachers’
competences are aptitude, ability and skill owned by someone having a job to
teach a student to have good personality like the educational purpose. In
Indonesian Republic law no 14 year 2005, it is explained that competence is a set
of knowledge, skill and behaviour which must be owned, perceived, and mastered
by a teacher in undertaking their professional duty. Teachers personality have
contributed enough to the success of education, especially in learning activities
and also teachers personality have significant influence on the formation of
private students. Good personality of teacher also can encourage students to learn
enthusiastically.
Hard skills. Hard skills are the skills that people use to do a job. Hard skills
are tangible skills that people learn in the school and utilize at both work and life,
Arat (2014). In other words, “hard skills are mastery of the science, technology
and engineering skills that are associated with the field science” (Rokhmawan,
12
2012, p. 51). The ways to master hard skills of teacher are the abilities in
mastering teaching technique and control the field of knowledge. In other words
the teachers that have good hard skill certainly have wide knowledge and also be
able to teach as well.
Soft skills. There are many experts defining what soft skill is. Schulz (2008)
argues soft skills refer to the cluster of personality traits, social grace, facility with
language, personal habits, friendliness and optimism that mark people to varying
degree. Similarly, Ridder, Meysman, Oluwagbemi and Abeel (2014) defines soft
skills are the abilities of people to have good manners, optimism, common sense,
a sense of humor, empathy, and the ability to collaborate and negotiate with
others. Meanwhile Robles (2012) states that soft skills are critical for productive
performance in today’s workplace, current and future business leaders or
emphasizing the development of soft skill.
Soft skills are the abilities of humans in communication with others and
work in team. Soft skill also the abilities of someone to convey ideas, so that
others people can understand the messages that people express and also the ways
to overcome stress (Muqowim, 2012). Soft skills can complement hard skills,
which are the technical requirements of job. It means that soft skills more related
to the psychological skill of people.
Soft skill can help teachers in teaching process. Sudana (2014) defines
teachers who have soft skill in teaching can become a role model to students. The
teachers can develop students’ attitude. Teacher is a motivator to their students. It
13
means that the teachers that have soft skills can motivate to students to build their
confident in learning. Teachers that have soft skill in teaching are also able to
become an innovator to give some ideas in learning to their students. Furthermore,
soft skill of teachers in teaching also can help teachers to become a leader. It
means that the teachers are able to give some directive or support students to get
best achievement in learning.
There are two experts said that soft skill consisted of two parts, namely
intrapersonal skill and interpersonal skill. According to Muqowim (2012),
intrapersonal skills are the ability to regulate oneself. In other words, intrapersonal
skills are more relating to someone recognize themself, motivate self, work hard
and have ambition. Meanwhile, interpersonal skills are more related to someone’s
competence in interacting with other people, like showing empathy to the other
people, building good communication with others, building relationship with
other or also motivating others. According to Vijaya (2013), intrapersonal skills
include self-understanding, values, desires to learn and self-management.
Interpersonal skills include teamwork skill, adaptability of environment and social
skill.
Interpersonal Skills
Definition of interpersonal skills. Human is a social species who cannot
live alone. People certainly need others to interact. In interacting with others,
people require certain skill that is interpersonal skill. There are some definition of
interpersonal skills from the experts. According to Lievens and Sacket (2012), an
interpersonal skill refers to skills related to social sensitivity, relationship
14
building, working with others, listening and communication. Interpersonal skills
also in define as skills to recognize and respond to properly feeling, attitudes and
behaviour, motivate and respect the wishes of others. In other words interpersonal
skills are the ability to respond or understand the attitude of others as well.
Teachers as the powerful element in teaching process should be able to build
good communication with their students. According to Med (2007, p.152),
“interpersonal skills are those essential skills involved in dealing with the relating
to other people, largely on a one-to-o2ne basis”. It means that teachers who have
interpersonal skills are important. It can help teachers to build good
communication both for them and their students.
Most experts say that interpersonal skills are the ability of someone to
interact with others. Matin (2010) also argues that interpersonal skill is the skill
that is used by a person to properly interact with others. Meanwhile, Marvin and
Irma (2008) mention a people that have interpersonal skill certainly has a keen
ability to others as individuals. In other words, interpersonal skills are the set of
abilities enabling a person to interact positively and work effectively with others.
Components of Interpersonal Skill
There are many researches explaining about components of interpersonal
skills that teacher should have (Lievens and Sackett, 2012; Wubbels, Brok,
Tartwijk, Levy, 2012). It can be summarized from those researches, that the
majority of components found are: communication skill, relationship building
skill, motivating skill and doing teamwork skill.
15
Communication skill. In teaching and learning process, the teachers should
have communication skill to communicate with their students. The teacher should
be able to build good communication between teacher to teachers and also teacher
to students. According to Hussainy, Jandaghi, Karimi and Hamidizadeh (2012), to
become a professional teacher, the teachers should be able to develop their
communication skills. It means that, communication skill is one of important
thing of teacher in teaching process.
Communication is an integral feature of human activities. It means that
people who have the ability to communicate can easily interact with others.
Communication can be described as the process of transferring and receiving
ideas, information, and message (Jain, 2013). Moreover, Matin et al (2010) also
argues that communication is transmission of meaning from one to other or to
many people, whether verbally or non-verbally. It means that communication is
something crucial to make other people understand the meaning of our ideas.
Interpersonal communication skills are vitals in workplace where new job
requirement, new skills, and new ways of working with people are changing at
drastically (Kambeya, 2008). In learning process, the teachers’ duty is also
become an educator for their students. Teachers should able to communicate with
their students. It means that the teachers should have good communication.
Interpersonal communication of teachers can be a key element of an effective
school (Hall, 2000).
There are some experts explaining about the principals of interpersonal
communication of teachers. According to Kambeya (2008) there are four
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principals of teachers’ interpersonal communication, namely they identified faceto-face communication, written and verbal, support and caring, and trust and
support. Furthermore, according to Slater (2005), attitude and productivity of
teachers are certainly affected by the principals’ interpersonal communication of
teachers.
According to Brener (2003), one of the most important issues in
interpersonal communication skill is listening skill. It means that, communication
skill is the ability to deliver the message that they speak, so the students can
understand easier. In other words, both teachers and students should be able to
build good communication as a communicator and as a listener. In line, according
to Rui (2007) in interpersonal communication situations there is always a twoway flow of communication. In other words, there is a person as a sender the
message and another person as a receiver the message.
There are the principles of communication skill. According Muqowim
(2012), there are five principles of communication skills that abbreviated as
REACH which means respect, empathy, audiable, clarity and humble. Respect is
mutual respect for each other with detail of every opinions, proposals, and
rejection should be listened. In other words, respect is more appreciate each other.
Empathy is the ability to listen or understand others before be heard or understand
the person. Audible is media uses that may be understood others. Clarity is clarity
message, it means that our words not ambiguous. Humble an attitude of humility,
serving, appreciate, be a good listener, accepting criticism, self-control and
placing greater interest.
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According to Hairuzila (2009), communication is the most important part in
life. One of the way to make effective communication is confidence. Effective
communication have some points in communicating, which is the the body
language, pitch of the voice and the use of appropriate words. It is vital to a
person to be able to communicate effectively and understandable by others. It
usually can be carried by people who have interpersonal skill.
Markovic and Axmann (2007) mention that “the body has its own
language. The body language can be in accordance with the words-the verbal
language, but there can also be a discrepancy”. It means that in communication
the people not only explain their ides with their speak but also people can more
detail their ides with their body language. Markovic and Axmann also said that
most of people often believe body language more than believe the words.
In conclusion, one of a component of interpersonal skill that should be
owned teachers is communication skill. Good communication between teachers
and students which teachers could deliver lessons to good and clear on each
learning. Good communication will produce a message that easily to understand.
Relationship building skill. Relationship building including one in
interpersonal skill should be owned a teacher. According to Sardiman (2004),
there are some components that influence the result of learning process, namely,
teachers organize matter, method applied and the media that have used. Beside
that, one of important factors that succeed in learning process is relationship
between teachers and students.
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Teacher should be able to build positive relationship between their students.
Positive relationship between teachers and students influence students’ motivation
and outcome. Therefore teachers suggest having positive connection with their
student. Hamre and Pianta also mention, “when teachers form positive bonds with
the students, classroom becomes spaces in which students can engage in
academically and socially productive ways” (Hamre & Pianta, 2001).
To measure interpersonal relationship between teachers and students it can
be seen from a teacher that gives little attention in the form of student teachers’
involvement in the game, giving gifts to the students. So the teachers can also
express concern over the absence of the students to establish relationship with
students (Medler, 2010).
The skill of giving motivation. According to Muqowim (2012), the success
of an activity is strongly influenced by motivation, thus the ability to confer
motivation very important owned by teachers in order to obtain success in
learning process.
The role of teachers as motivator is important lies in order to increase
passion in activities student learning. Teachers should be able to stimulate and
give thrust and reinforcement to increase the potential students in learning and to
cultivate creativity students who can be a useful tool to the learning process.
Sardiman (2004) argues as for one of the reasons motivation skill including into
interpersonal skill that must be held by a teacher is because motivation skill
related to the essence work educate that require skillfulness social, related to
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performance in the sense personalization and socialization self. Based on the
words before that interpersonal skill more reflect with social someone including
teachers.
The skill of doing team work. In lives most of people have already joined
certain organization or association, while in organization the people requires to
have leaderships’ attitude.
Success of interpersonal can also be seen than success the person in building
a team. According to Pachauri and Yadav (2014), teamwork is the ability to build
a good rapport, interact and work effectively with others, and also recognize and
respect others’ attitude, behaviour and beliefs. Someone who can afford to build a
team on ascertained have souls of leadership. Teachers who can afford to build a
team have a responsibility that high to the learning process and to the environment
and also ability to give contribution to the planning and coordinate group work.
Muqowim (2012) states that the interpersonal skills that are widely accepted
in Indonesia context are motivation skill, leadership skill, negotiation skill,
presentation skill, communication skill, relationship building skill, public
speaking skill, and self-marketing skill.
The Importance of Interpersonal Skill
Interpersonal skill is important skill that must be have by everyone. To
become a professional in their job, people should have interpersonal skill. For
example, to succeed in teaching the teachers should have good interpersonal skill.
The teachers need to understand what the students wanted. The teachers also
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should be able build good communication or interact with their students. If the
teacher did not have good interpersonal skill, they can not to build positive
communication or positive relationship with their students.
There are some benefits of teacher’s interpersonal skill in teaching process.
Duffy (2004) mentions there are some effects of teachers’ interpersonal skill, one
of the effect is reduce of students’ anxiety in learning process. Interpersonal skills
of teachers can make atmosphere of learning more comport and interesting. In
other words, teachers’ interpersonal skill influences of students learn effectively in
learning.
Another important factor of teachers’ interpersonal skill is good
communication between teachers and students can build positive relationship for
both. According to Syaefudin (2007), the relationship between teacher and
students is a tool a control the students at the school and outside the school. The
relationship between the teachers and students will be plaited carefully by the
presence of the good attitude of teachers in communicating, good in looking, the
mind-set of teacher in deciding the problems and responsibility of the teacher.
Teachers’ interpersonal skill is important to students in learning process.
According to Skinner and Belmot (1993), teachers’ interpersonal skill can
influence students’ attitude and students’ belief. If the teachers have good
interpersonal skill, it means that the teachers can build good interaction with their
students. It can influence the attitude of students when they interact to teacher or
when they interact with their other students.
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Teachers’ Interpersonal Skill and Students’ Learning
In learning process that adopts student centered approach the teachers
should have good communication skills. It can impacts to their students. One of
impacts is to students to develop students’ communication skill in inside class or
outside class. Jain argues “it is very important to make the learners comfortable
with the language they have to communicate in” (Jain, 2013, p. 78).
Teachers who have interpersonal skill also can become facilitator with their
students (Reeve, 2006). In learning process, students learn to listen, to say, to ask
questions and interact between teachers-students or students-students. If the
teachers have positive interpersonal skill they be able to become a good facilitator
for their students. They can be able to listen and answer everything that students
asked. They also be able to occur in fair between their students.
There are some activities that could be used to develop a communication
skill of teachers in learning process. Such as group work, task work and
information gap activities. These could be achieve through the following
activities: task-completion activities: puzzle, games, map-reading and other kinds
in classroom tasks in which the focus will be on ability to use communication
skills to complete a task (Jain, 2013).
According to Jain (2013), there are kinds of interpersonal communication
skill that can teachers use in learning process. First is information gathering
activities, like students will conduct survey, interview and searches in which they
will use the communication skill to collect information. Second, opinion-sharing
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activities are the activities where students compare values, opinions and beliefs.
Then, discussion/debate activities and the last one is oral presentation.
Interpersonal relationships between teachers and students have some effects
in students’ learning environment. Baker et al mention interpersonal relationship
both teachers and students enable students to feel safe and secure in their learning
environments (Baker et al, 2008). In other words, teachers’ interpersonal can
make students feel safe and comfort in learning process. There is another effect of
teachers’ interpersonal relationship in learning process. When teachers form
positive bonds with students, it can impact on classroom. Classroom becomes
supportive spaces in which students can engage in academically and socially
productive way (Hamre and Pianta, 2001). Therefore, teachers’ interpersonal skill
could presences closeness, warmth and positivity in learning environment.
Learners in the process to get the best outcome need a teacher to support
them in order to reach the highest possible achievement. Teachers who have good
interpersonal skill that students needed to reach it. One of the skills is as a
facilitator to their students. According to Yan (2012), as facilitators, teachers need
to do all the efforts to help make the learning easier and motivate learners to play
to the best of their potentials, which includes: helping learners to acquire the
knowledge and skills and motivate learner to learn actively.
Interpersonal skill of teacher is one of fundamental to the process of
learning, (Burkill et al, 2000). It means that, teachers’ interpersonal skill is the
basic of learning process. Elston (2010) also argues that interpersonal skill of
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teachers will play a vital role in an individuals’ education. Many of the learning
situation that higher education students are exposed to rely heavily on these types
of skill.
Review of Related Research
There were many researches that involve interpersonal skills of teachers as
the main problem. Some of researches tried to connect teachers’ interpersonal
skills with students’ learning. One of the researches was conducted by Brok,
Levy, Brekelmans, Wubbels (2006) entitle “Teacher Interpersonal Behaviour and
Students’ Subject-Specific Motivation”. The research brought together insight
from research on teaching in specific subject, learning environments research and
effectiveness research by linking teacher interpersonal behaviour to students’
subject. They tried to investigate the added value of students’ perception of
teacher interpersonal behaviour on students’ subject specific motivation. The data
of 52 third-year ELF-classes (English as a Foreign Language; 1041 students),
taught by 32 secondary teachers, were included in the analyses. They used
multilevel analysis of variance to investigate the effect of teaching on motivation
and included several covariates as well. For all of the discerned subject-related
attitude variables - pleasure, relevance, confidence and effort, a positive and
strong effect was found for teacher Proximity. The results demonstrated the
significant role of teacher interpersonal behaviour in student motivation and the
importance of combining insights from various educational research disciplines.
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Another research was conducted by Rani and Tyagi (2013) entitled “Effect
of Interpersonal Relationship on Attitude of Teacher Educators. An Empirical
Study”. This research finding was limited in clarifying interpersonal relationship
and its effect on the attitude of teachers. This research conducted an empirical
study on relationship between the interpersonal skills and the attitude of teachers.
The result of this research was good interpersonal relationship impact positively
on the attitude of the teacher educators. Therefore, it was essential to have strong
interpersonal relationship for the teachers especially teacher educators.
Conceptual Framework
Teachers must develop their interpersonal skill to interact with their
students. Teachers who have good interpersonal skill can affect students’ learning.
It can make students feel more comfortable in learning process. In English
Education of UMY there are two cases. First, there were some students who felt
afraid to interact with their teachers because they consider that their teacher was
not friendly to them. It made them afraid to communicate and build relation with
their teacher. Another case was some of students felt very comfortable with their
teachers in English Education Department of UMY. Most of them were interested
in joining the teachers’ class.
Teachers’ interpersonal skills and students’ learning is very closely related
each other. In learning process, teachers’ interpersonal skills have some impacts to
students’ learning. If the teachers have good interpersonal skill, it means that the
teachers can build communication between their students. Teachers who have
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good interpersonal skills also can build relationship with their students, give
motivation and doing team work. One of the positive impacts of good
interpersonal skill of teacher is that students feel more confident. Nevertheless, if
the teachers have poor interpersonal skill, it can impact to students and then
students feel do not enjoyable in learning.
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Figure 2.1. Conceptual Framework
Teachers’ Competence is
Important
Hard Skills
Soft Skills
Intrapersonal Skills
Kinds of Interpersonal Skills
Interpersonal Skills
The Teachers’ Interpersonal
Skills in EED UMY
1. Communication Skill
2. Relationship Skill
3. Motivation Skill
4. Teamwork Skill
?
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Chapter Three
Methodology
Research method was a system or method of work to be done on a study.
The researcher was required to select and specify the appropriate method and
flexible in order to achieve its objectives.
This chapter presented the methodology used in this study which was
presented in four parts. First part presented the research design used in the
research. Second part presented the participants of this research. The third part
explained about data collection method. Finally fourth part presented data
analysis.
Research Design
The purpose of this study was to know the perception of students on the
interpersonal skill of the teachers of EED UMY. The participants in this research
explained their opinions about interpersonal skill of teachers in EED UMY. Based
on objectives above, the research design appropriate for this research was
qualitative research. Tewksbury (2009) also explained that qualitative research
method provided more emphasis on interpretation and providing someone with
complete views, looking at contexts, environmental and depth of understanding of
concepts. Creswell (2012) argued that qualitative research would be appropriate to
be employed when it would identify research participants’ opinion, believe, or
even perception. It means that qualitative research was aimed to reveal
participants’ opinions.
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Based on explanation above, qualitative method was appropriate for this
research as it revealed EED students’ perception on teachers’ interpersonal skill.
Implementing this method, the researcher attempted to identify the students’
perception by collection the data through interview. Besides, it was also to gain
the deeper perception of students’ view point on teachers’ interpersonal skill at
EED UMY.
Setting of the Research
This research was conducted in English Education Department (EED) of
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. There were several reasons why the
researcher selected this department as the setting this research. First the researcher
had seen there was a phenomenon in EED UMY about teachers’ interpersonal
skill that impact to the students’ learning. It meant that this research is appropriate
to be conduct in EED UMY. Second the researcher as a student in EED UMY.
This provided accessibility to the researcher to get help by faculty members in
conducting the research. Third, EED UMY’s students are more likely to become a
teacher in the future. Based on those three reasons above, to choose EED UMY as
the setting of the research is appropriate and suitable.
Participants of the Research
The participants selected by random sampling. According to Creswell
(2008) random sampling research was all of the participants agreed to participate
with this research. It meant that the researcher will find the participants who were
really willing to be the participants of this research so they inclined to give the
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more sincere and true information based on participants’s experience. The
participants were randomly selected in order to make the data gathered become
more valid.
There were six students participating in this research namely four female
and two male students. All participants were the students of EED UMY batch
2012. There were some reasons of choosing the students batch 2012 as the
participants. First, they had been learning at EED UMY for four years. They had
many experiences in communication with the teachers, motivational section and
also working together with their teachers. EED UMY students batch 2012 have
more experiences than students batch 2013 until 2015. They also knew teachers’
habit in teaching. It was an opportunity to the researcher to get more information
that relates to teachers’ interpersonal skill. Second, the participants were chosen
because they were willing to talk and easy to be accessed.
Instrument of the Research
The researcher used interview guidelines to help the researcher in
interviewing. Interview guidelines included some questions that the researcher
gave to the participants. There were four main questions in interview guideline
that the researcher asks to the participants. The first question, the researcher asked
about participants’ opinions on teachers’ communication skills in the classroom.
Second, the researcher asked about participants’ opinions on teachers’ relationship
in the classroom. Third, the researcher asked about teachers’ motivational role in
30
the classroom. Finally, the researcher asked about participants’ opinions on
teachers’ teamwork in the classroom.
During the interview, the researcher used mobile phone to record the
interview process with the participants. It also helped the researcher to transcribe
the interviews. Al-Yateem (2012, p.32) cited that “the recording can be viewed or
listened to repeatedly in case in doubt or during data analysis, and it also provides
a basis for reliability and validity”. It means that, when researcher and the
participant did interview, all of the sounds should be recorded. The reason was to
get reliability and validity of the data.
Data Collection Method
One-on-one interview was employed as the type of interview. It meant the
researcher and the participant was working face-to-face in the interview, one as a
interviewer and one as a participant. There were several reasons in using one-onone interview. First, the participant could feel more comfortable when he/she was
interviewed. The participants were also easier to answer researcher’s question
when they felt comfortable. According to Creswell (2008) by having one-on-one
interview, the data gathered would become more accurate because the participant
could communicate naturally, comfortably, and clearly so that the researcher
could ask if there was any misunderstanding on the questions asked. Second, on
one-on-one interview, the participants were more focused in interview. It was
opportunity for the researcher to get deep information and also the answers of
participants were not affected by other participants.
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The researcher contacted all the participants through social media message
application such as BBM and WhatsApp application. It was to ask the students
whether they were willing to be participant or not. Then, the researcher made an
appointment about time and place to collect the data with the students willing to
be the participants. There were three participants willing to meet with the
researcher in college and the other participants wanted to meet in their boarding
house. The researcher visited the participants one by one to interview them.
There was no limitation time during the interview. If all the researcher’s
questions were all asked, the interview was also finished. It meant that, when the
researcher already got information related to teachers’ interpersonal skill, the
process of data collection was completed. In interviewing, the average of the time
to interview was five until seven minutes from all the participants.
While collecting the data, the researcher used Bahasa Indonesia in
interview. The reason in using Bahasa Indonesia was to make easier
communication both of the researcher and participants. According to Byrne &
Michelle (2001), the researcher must master communication skill. Good
communication in interview influences the participants’ answer, so the answer of
participants was not ambiguous. Bahasa Indonesia is the language that is
understood by both the research and the participants so that the researcher can get
the participants’ points more clearly.
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Data Analysis
The last method to be explained in this chapter was data analysis. The steps
of analyzing the data was started by transcribing the interview result from
participants one by one from the data recorder. Then, after transcribing the
recording, the researcher did member checking. Doing member checking was
essential in order to make sure the validity of the data gathered. Member checking
was done by showing the script result to the respondents and asking them to check
whether the script results were really the same with the interview that they had
been done or not. Member checking was done in May 2016 and all of the
participants agreed with the researcher’s transcription, so there were no changes.
After doing the member checking, the researcher analyzed the by data using
thematic analysis. Thematic analysis was a process of data coding. In coding the
data, the researcher firstly analyzed the script of recording. It meant that the
researcher inferred what the participants meant by their answer in each question.
This activity was done in open coding. Then, after doing the open coding, the
researcher did axial coding. In axial coding, the researcher classified each item of
statement that has the same category into one interpretation. The last was se