SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

  SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE A THESIS By Erna Pratiwi Student Number: 02.80.0003 ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGAMME FACULTY OF LETTERS SOEGIJAPRANATA CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY SEMARANG 2006

  SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE A thesis presented as partial fulfillment of the requirement to obtain the Sarjana Sastra in the English Letters Study programme By Erna Pratiwi Student Number: 02.80.0003 ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME FACULTY OF LETTERS SOEGIJAPRANATA CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY SEMARANG 2006

A THESIS ON SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

  By Erna Pratiwi

  Student Number: 02.80.0003 Approved by,

  Drs. Antonius Suratno, M.A. 21, October 2006 Major Sponsor Heny Hartono, SS., MPd 21, October 2006 Co-Sponsor

  A thesis defended in front of the board examiners on 21 October 2006 and declared acceptable

  BOARD OF EXAMINERS Chair Person : Drs. Antonius Suratno, M.A …………….

  Secretary : Heny Hartono, SS., MPd …………… Member : Emilia Ninik Aydawati, SP., M.Hum ……………

  Semarang, 21 October 2006 Faculty of Letters

  Soegijapranata Catholic University Dean,

  Heny Hartono, SS., MPd

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  First and foremost the writer would like to thank for her wonderful savior, her manager of life, JESUS CHRIST for His mercy, blessing and guidance for her so that she can accomplish this thesis.

  The writer would also like to express her sincerest gratitude for those who helped her in accomplishing this thesis. Firstly, the writer would like to give her gratitude for her thesis advisors, Mr. Antonius Suratno, M.A as her major sponsor and Mrs. Heny Hartono, SS., MPd as her co-sponsor who have encouraged the writer during this thesis writing. The writer really appreciates their valuable time, efforts, passion, guidance, and support to finish this thesis. Her gratitude also goes to all lecturers in Faculty of Letters Soegijapranata Catholic University for their valuable knowledge and wonderful classes.

  She also gives her thank to Mr. Sugiharto as the headmaster of SMU N 1 Wates, and Mr. Marsudi Raharjo as the headmaster of SMU N 1 Sentolo for allowing her to do her research in their schools.

  The next gratitude, she would like to thank her beloved mother; thank for her loves, support, prayer, attention, patience, and sacrifice. She is the best for her life. For her beloved brother, thank you for his love, support, care, and attention. The writer also would like to say thank you for her cousin Pdt. Natanael Kriswanto and his family, for their support and contribution.

  The writer next gratitude goes to all her friends in Faculty of Letters’02, especially for her “CHEERFUL GANK” ( Sepsy_Ambon: thank you for her support and patience in accompanying her to finish this thesis. Indah, Hilda, and Stefany: thank you for their friendship, care, and support for the writer). For Prima, Padma, Tin2, Novi_Sancai, Rosheeta, Neena, Happy, Vivi, Ana, Renny_Lorenk, bu Ria thank you for their support and togetherness.

  She wants to say thank you for her friends in boarding house: Mrs. Bagyo, Ana Marie, Yessie, Mike, Ria, Dara, Fanny, Henny for their support for her to finish her thesis.

  Finally, the writer hopes that this thesis would be useful for the readers.

  The Writer

  TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGES OF TITLE ..........................................................................................i PAGES OF APPROVAL .................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..............................................................................iv TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................vi TABLE OF APPENDICES .............................................................................viii ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................ix ABSTRAK.........................................................................................................x

  CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION

  1.1 Background of the Study ..............................................................................1

  1.2 The Scope of the Study.................................................................................2

  1.3 Problem Formulation ...................................................................................2

  1.4 Objectivesof the Study..................................................................................3

  1.5 Significance of the Study..............................................................................3

  1.6 Definition of Terms ......................................................................................3

  CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW

  2.1 English as a Foreign Language and Compulsory Subject.............................5

  2.2 Factor in Learning Foreign Language ..........................................................6

  2.3 Attitude to Language Learning ....................................................................10

  2.3.1 Definition of Attitude ..........................................................................10

  2.4 The Components of Attitude ........................................................................13

  2.5 The Students’ Attitude toward English Language Learning.........................15

  CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

  3.1 Method of Data Collection ...........................................................................17

  3.1.1 Research Participants ..........................................................................17

  3.1.2 Instrument ...........................................................................................18

  3.1.3 Procedure ............................................................................................19

  3.2 Method of Data Analysis..............................................................................19

  CHAPTER IV. DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

  4.1 The School of The Respondents...................................................................23

  4.2 Students’ Attitude toward English Language ..............................................24

  4.2.1 The Discussion of Positive Responses Attitude toward English As a Foreign Language .......................................................................26

  4.2.2 The Discussion of Negative Responses Attitude toward English As a Foreign Language .......................................................................30

  4.3 Senior High School Students’ Attitude Based on Attitude Component ......32

  CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

  5.1 Conclusion ...................................................................................................37

  5.2 Suggestion ...................................................................................................38 BIBLIOGRAPHY

  TABLE OF APPENDICES

  APPENDIX 1 Questionnaire APPENDIX 2 The Result of Questionnaire APPENDIX 3 The Results of Questionnaire based on Attitude Components, Sex and School APPENDIX 4 The table of Descriptive Statistics APPENDIX 5 The table of Frequency

  ABSTRACT

  Nowadays, there have been more and more Indonesian people who use foreign languages. In our country English is a foreign language because this language is not used in their communication. This fact will create the difficulties for the senior high school students who have negative attitudes to improve their English, but for the students who have positive attitudes, they will have a desire to improve their English. The purpose of this research is to find out the attitude of senior high school students toward English as a foreign language, whether positive or negative. The discussion in this study is supported with some facts about the tendency of the positive or negative attitude of senior high school students in SMU N 1 Wates and SMU N 1 Sentolo. The data were taken from the senior high school students in SMU N 1 Wates and SMU N 1 Sentolo. There are 70 respondents which consist of 35 Students from SMU N 1 Wates and 35 students from SMU N 1 Sentolo. To collect the data from the respondents, the writer used questionnaire, and this questionnaire belongs to close-ended questionnaire. In this questionnaire there are four options, those are strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree. These options are arranged based on the Likert-Scale method. This research also belongs to both qualitative and quantitative research and it uses simple description statistic to explain the data. The result of this study shows that actually the senior high school students have positive attitude toward English as a foreign language on cognitive component, affective component, and behavioral component.

  ABSTRAK

  Saat ini ada begitu banyak orang Indonesia yang menggunakan bahasa asing. Di Negara kita bahasa Inggris merupakan bahasa asing, karena bahasa Inggris tidak digunakan dalam komunikasi sehari-hari. Kenyataan ini akan menciptakan kesulitan-kesulitan bagi siswa-siswa SMU yang mempunyai sikap negative untuk meningkatkan bahasa Inggris mereka, tetapi bagi para siswa yang mempunyai sikap positive, mereka akan berkeinginan untuk meningkatkan kualitas bahasa Inggris mereka. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk meneliti sikap para siswa SMU teehadap bahasa Inggris sebagai bahasa asing, apakah positif atau negative. Penelitian ini juga akan menunjukkan pentingnya suatu sikap dalam belajar bahasa Inggris. Diskusi dan penelitian ini juga didukung oleh beberapa fakta tentang kecenderungan sikap positif atau negatif dari para siswa SMU di SMU N 1 Wates dan SMU N 1 Sentolo. Data yang diperoleh dalam penelitian ini diperoleh dari respondent yang berasal dari siswa SMU N 1 Wates dan siswa SMU N 1 Sentolo. Dari kedua SMU ini terdapat 70 responden yang terdiri dari 35 siswa SMU N 1 Wates dan 35 siswa SMU N 1 Sentolo. Untuk memperoleh data dari respondent, penulis menggunakan kuesioner dan kuesioner ini termasuk dalam kuesioner tertutup. Di dalam kuesioner ini ada empat pilihan yaitu sangat setuju, setuju, tidak setuju, dan sangat tidak setuju. Pilihan-pilihan ini disusun berdasarkan metode Skala-Likert. Penelitian ini juga termasuk dalam penelitian kualitatif dan kuantitatif dan untuk menerangkan data yang ada digunakan deskripsi statistic secara sederhana. Hasil dari penelitian ini adalah pada kenyataannya para siswa SMU ini mempunyai sikap yang positif terhadap bahasa Inggris sebagai bahasa asing berdasarkan pada tiga komponen yaitu : komponen kognitif , komponen afektif dan komponen behavioral.