A Research on Students’ Interest in Using English to Speak with Their Peers

A Research on Students’ Interest in Using English to

Speak with Peers in STBA LIA Yogyakarta

The paper is submitted to fulfill paper-writing final exam

Written by:

Walissa Tanaya Pramanasari

(2012101004)

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

LIA SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE

YOGYAKARTA

2014

A Research on Students’ Interest in Using English to Speak with Peers in STBA LIA Yogyakarta Walissa Tanaya Pramanasari (2012101004) 1

A. INTRODUCTION

It is not a secret that English has become an international language – a lingua

franca for global communication. That global communication is reflected in many

sectors including international diplomacy, education, and especially business. Since

most prominent corporations expand their business by cooperating and making

agreements with foreign corporations, the ability to communicate in English becomes

a prerequisite for employees. In fact, most jobs openings nowadays, whether it be for

a receptionist or a sales executive, require potential candidates to have adequate

proficiency in English. In this case, one of the skills requested is the ability to speak

English fluently.

As a result, many people take the initiative to study English and therefore enhance

their ability to speak in English. Some follow weekly courses at establishments such

as LBPP LIA. Others concentrate on the field entirely by selecting it as their major,

which is the case for the students of STBA LIA Yogyakarta. It is assumed that they are

aware of the importance of being able to speak English in the world today. This

awareness is reflected in their interest to speak the language in their daily lives,

especially when they are talking to their peers at campus.

Interest itself is defined as “curiosity or concern” and “an enjoyable thing”

(Encarta Dictionary, 2006). This definition leads to the premise that a student who

has interest in speaking English would show curiosity and concern for the subject,

and he or she would perceive speaking in English as an enjoyable thing. This attitude

is most obviously reflected in how often the student speaks English with his or her

peers at campus. Meanwhile, published research about interest in speaking English is

available. MacIntyre (1999) conducted a thorough study on it under the technical

term “Willingness to Communicate” or WTC. It has become one of the backbones of

most researches, including Denise Cameron’s latest research about WTC in Iranian

migrants in New Zealand. Other than that, most of the research, especially in the

context of EFL and ESL, is about interest in speaking English in the formal teaching-

learning context in the classroom, such as the research done by Yousef and his

colleagues (2013) in Malaysia about WTC in Malaysian pre-service English teachers.

Less research has been done about the casual communication that exists outside the


classroom. There was a research done about the influence of age and sex in WTC, both

inside and outside the classroom environment (Donovan & MacIntyre, 2004). Those

two variables were tested by means of questionnaires and the data was analyzed

quantitatively. However, we could not find research done in the form of an

experiment to find out about WTC in English, as a foreign language, among peers at

school. We considered the absence of research in this area as a potential research

opportunity.

Meanwhile, related to the issue of WTC above, it is a known fact that the students

of STBA LIA Yogyakarta do not really show much interest in speaking English with

their peers. Despite the importance of increasing their speaking skills, the mother

tongue is more frequently used as a medium for casual conversation between

students, even in campus where speaking in English is strongly encouraged. It is

observed that many students are not willing to speak English with each other. There

is uncertainty about why this situation exists. Is it the lack of students with high WTC?

Is it about personality? Or is it the learning environment? This situation, in addition

to the research opportunity mentioned above, has motivated me and my partner to

conduct a research about how interested students are to speak in English with

their peers, specifically at STBA LIA Yogyakarta. One of the elements of our

research is an experiment in which we would like to observe whether students would

be more willing to respond to a peer who has high willingness to communicate (WTC).

Finally, the research questions that we would like to answer are:

1. How many students will use English at all when conversing with a peer who has

high WTC?

2. How often will they use English within their conversation with that peer?

3. Why do students hesitate to speak in English with their peers?

B. REVIEW OF LITERATURE

1. Definition of WTC

According to MacIntyre and Doucette (2010:162) ‘the willingness to

communicate (WTC) can be conceptualized as a readiness to speak in the L2 at a

particular time with a specific person, and as such, is the final psychological step

to the initiation of L2 communication’.


2. Variables of WTC

According to Yousef, Jamil, and Razak in their latest research on WTC, the concept

of WTC was originally introduced by McCroskey and Associates (McCroskey &

Baer, 1985; McCroskey & Richmond, 1987, 1990) based on Burgoon’s (1976)

work on unwillingness to communicate. Through the extended works of

MacIntyre and Charos (1996), MacIntyre et al. (1998) built a heuristic model of

WTC in an L2. MacIntyre et al.’s heuristic model proposes WTC to be an

interaction between cognitive affective variables (trait) and social factors

(situational). Researchers have conducted substantial works on WTC as a

predictor in learning an L2 (MacIntyre, Baker, Clément, & Conrod, 2001;

MacIntyre, Baker, Clément, & Donovan, 2003; MacIntyre & Doucette, 2010; Peng

& Woodrow, 2010).

More specifically into the subject of influencing variables, MacIntyre, Babin, and

Clement (1999) conducted a study on the antecedents and consequences of WTC

through a thorough analysis that involved relationship diagrams and statistics

saw the effects of trait and state in WTC. The variables included the introversion

or extraversion of the person, and the effect of talking to the person’s friends,

acquaintances, or strangers. Later, Denise Cameron (2012) in her research on

Iranian migrants in New Zealand found that there are many variables that

influence willingness to communicate which are both trait and situational. Among

them are competence, personality, motivation, anxiety, and social learning

context. In addition, Juhana (2012) focuses on the psychological factors which

influence WTC which are fear of making mistakes, shyness, and lack of confidence.

C. RESEARCH METHOD

1. An experiment in the form of an “interview”

What we mean by interview is a casual conversation with a peer in STBA LIA

Yogyakarta. The “experiment” element is reflected in the way we conducted the

interview. We asked the questions in English as casually as possible in an informal

setting, and we did not instruct the students to answer in English. The question in

our minds was: how would they respond? Meanwhile, the parameter was the


known and agreed fact that students in STBA LIA Yogyakarta rarely speak in

English with each other.

We constructed a protocol for interviewing the students in the experiment which

was as follows:

a) Each student is interviewed in English, in private.

b) The questions are very basic everyday questions which are mostly about

campus.

c) The interviewer and interviewee know each other as friends or

acquaintances, and they talk in a cordial, positive manner.

This protocol was made based on the principles of high WTC with the variables of

motivation (Cameron), fear of making mistakes (Juhana), competency in

answering questions (Cameron), and relationship with speaker (MacIntyre,

Babin, and Clement). The aim was for the interviewer to be a peer, or speaking

partner in this case, which has a high WTC. Collectively, all these measures

became a set of controlling variables for the experiment. Again, we wanted to see

the students’ response.

There were 6 questions for each person:

a) What are your plans for the upcoming holidays?

b) What is your favorite subject at STBALIA? Why?

c) Do you have a favorite teacher? Who and why do you like her/him?

d) Are you enjoying your study at STBA LIA?

e) What are your suggestions for our campus?

f) What do you plan to do/pursue after graduating from STBA LIA?

Each interview was recorded and a transcript was made. To determine whether

or not they spoke in English (research question 1), the criteria was as follows:

a) We define “use English” as the student actually uses English in their speech,

whether it be only a few words, some phrases, or sentences.

b) If they use English at all when they are speaking, we categorize this as a

“yes” and otherwise a “no”.


To determine how often the student spoke in English (research question 2), the

criteria was as follows:

a) We can measure how often/frequency by giving them a score (0-5) per

question.

b) Give 5 if they answer each question completely in English with no Bahasa at

all.

c) Give 4 if they answer the content of the question in English with some words

in Bahasa which are not substantive, e.g. “apa ya”, “misalnya”, “gitu lho”.

d) Give 3 if they answer the main content of the question in English but they

provide some substantive explanation in Bahasa, e.g. providing examples in

Bahasa. Give 3 also if they answer the question half in English and half in

Bahasa.

e) Give 2 if they only provide short sentences in English that do not answer the

question substantially. Most of the question is answered in Bahasa.

f) Give 1 if they answer in Bahasa and only provide short colloquial terms in

English at intervals such as “well”, “but”, “like that”, etc.

g) Give 0 if they don’t use English at all in answering the question.

h) Maximum score is 30, minimum is 0.

i) Scale for remarks

i. Always: 30

ii. Almost always: 26-29

iii. Frequently: 20-25

iv. Sometimes: 10-19

v. Rarely: 1-9

vi. Never: 0

The scores received by each student reflected their frequency of speaking in

English and, in this case, the WTC level of each student.

2. Questionnaires

A questionnaire was given to the students after the interview. The format of this

questionnaire was developed based on Juhana’s model for her research on

psychological factors in WTC for high school students (2012). We added more

questions and the content was as follows:


Please order the variables below that hinder you from speaking English, from

the most influencing to the least influencing. Provide reasons for the top three

variables.

a) I am an introvert. Why does this hinder you?

b) My campus (the place). Why does this hinder you?

c) My friends. Why does this hinder you?

d) Low-confidence. Why does this hinder you?

e) Fear of making mistakes (my competence). Why does this hinder you?

f) My lecturers. Why does this hinder you?

g) Lack of motivation. Why does this hinder you?

h) The students at campus. Why does this hinder you?

Each answer was scored (8 if ranked 1st, 7 if ranked 2nd, 6 if ranked 3rd, and so on)

for the corresponding variable it represented, which were:

a) Trait – introvert

b) Situational – physical environment

c) Situational – friends

d) Trait – confidence

e) Trait – competence and anxiety

f) Situational – lecturers

g) Trait – personal motivation

h) Situational – other students (social learning context)

The total score for each variable reflected its ranking among other variables and

therefore its significance in the students’ eyes.

All the data was analyzed using Microsoft Office Excel and IBM SPSS Statistics to

create a database and generate descriptive statistics for this research.

D. RESULTS

We managed to interview 32 students at STBA LIA Yogyakarta and ask them to fill

in the questionnaires. The results are discussed based on each research question.


1. How many students use English

Context of experiment: when one student is willing to communicate in English,

will the other be willing also?

The diagram below is a summary of how many students speak English:

From the results, we know that out of the 32 students we interviewed, only one

spoke in Bahasa Indonesia. The rest used English within their conversation.

2. How often students use English

Context of experiment: when one student keeps asking easy questions in English

consistently, how often will the other student speak English within the

conversation?

The table below shows the students’ scores and also the remarks for the

frequency of speaking in English:

Resp. Score Remark

1 27 almost always

2 26 almost always

3 30 always

4 29 almost always

5 22 frequently

6 30 always

7 30 always

8 17 sometimes

9 29 almost always

10 7 rarely

11 30 always

12 30 always

13 30 always

14 30 always

15 28 almost always

16 29 almost always

Resp. Score Remark

17 30 always

18 30 always

19 30 always

20 22 frequently

21 26 almost always

22 13 sometimes

23 30 always

24 29 almost always

25 0 never

26 26 almost always

27 14 sometimes

28 30 always

29 24 frequently

30 30 always

31 8 rarely

32 13 sometimes

(31) 97%

(1) 3%

How Many Students Use English

English

Bahasa


In summary, the results for frequencies are:

The histogram below provides further analysis of the average score of the

students interviewed and the score range among them:

Ignoring the obvious values from the bars for a moment, we can see from the

curve that the scores are not evenly distributed. The standard deviation is high,

being 8.272. The lowest score is 0 and the highest is 30 in comparison to the

average which is roughly 24. The bell curve is wide, indicating that the

distribution is far across extreme values, so there is a great disparity in scores

among students. However, the average is quite high in comparison to its minimum

and maximum value, so the bell curve is disproportionate. It slants to the right

1 24

3

9

13

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Never Rarely Sometimes Frequently Almost

Always

Always

How Often Students Use English

Within Their Conversation


(near the maximum value) meaning that most of the students have a high score.

Therefore this information suggests that most students frequently spoke in

English within their conversation in this interview, reflecting that most of them

had a high WTC.

3. Why students hesitate to speak in English with their peers

Based on the data from the questionnaires, we discovered that the overall ranking

for the 8 variables was: 1st: Variable 4, 2nd: Variable 5, 3rd: Variable 8, 4th: Variable

3, 5th: Variable 7, 6th: Variable 1, 7th: Variable 6, and 8th: Variable 2.

The following table shows the total scores for each variable:

Var. 4 5 8 3 7 1 6 2

Score 191 189 167 158 139 106 103 99

Variable 4 and 5 have a significantly higher score than the other variables but

their scores only differ 2 points. Variable 8 and 3 are also reasonably close to each

other, differing in only 9 points before variable 7 appears 19 points away. Variable

1, 6, and 2 have close scores at last place. This assessment can be a measurement

of how significant each variable is to the majority of students and how significant

it is compared to other variables. However, for a more focused discussion, this

paper will discuss only the top 3 variables that received the highest scores based

on the rankings given by the students in their questionnaires.

1ST RANK, VARIABLE 4: TRAIT – CONFIDENCE Previous studies show that students’ confidence affects their WTC (Juhana, 2012).

The data from the questionnaire suggests that the majority of students totally

agree that their low-confidence is a major reason behind their hesitance to speak

English with their peers. Some explanations supplied by them are:

“I am lack of confidence and sometimes it makes me less spirited to do

something, especially in practicing English.” (Respondent 7)

“I always feel shy when many people look at me.” (Respondent 10)

“I am not confident with my speaking skills.” (Respondent 23)


2ND RANK, VARIABLE 5: TRAIT – COMPETENCE AND ANXIETY Competence and is reflected in a student’s fear (anxiety) of making mistakes

(Juhana, 2012). A lot of the students gave a statement about their incompetence

in English skills and components, as shown in the quotes below:

“Because I'm lack of vocabulary and I'm afraid if my pronunciation is wrong.

(Respondent 2)

“Because my grammar sucks.” (Respondent 12)

“Because, I don't know more about English structure. So, I am very afraid to

speak English.” (Respondent 29)

3RD RANK, VARIABLE 8: SITUATIONAL – OTHER STUDENTS Other students, whether they are friends or acquaintances, make up the social

learning context and influence students’ WTC, as proven in the research

conducted by MacIntyre, Babin, and Clement (1999). The students provided

various explanations as why their peers affect their WTC, but they had similar

ideas to one another. The following represent the majority of the answers:

“The students at campus hinder me from speaking English. Sometimes when I

want to start a conversation with friends using English, they often ignore me

and sometimes just mocking me because I use English.” (Respondent 1)

“The students at campus rarely speak in English, so it would be hard to find

more than one speaking partners.” (Respondent 6)

“Because most of them are speaking in Bahasa Indonesia.” (Respondent 12)

“They don't start it first, so it hard for me to start speaking English.”

(Respondent 14)

From the explanations above, we can summarize that the students hesitate to

speak English because they do not want to get mockery from other students and

they tend to follow the crowd. Most students rarely speak in English and prefer to

speak in Bahasa Indonesia. If no one initiates speaking in English, they will most

likely speak in Bahasa Indonesia.

Another interesting finding is that some students related these variables with

others. Competence proved to be closely related to confidence, not only in their


total scores which based their ranking, but also in the explanations provided by

the students. As an example, some students said:

“I don't really have a high-confidence, because, I think that my English is

doesn't well, so it make me afraid to speak English.” (Respondent 21)

“It would be my problem at speaking English. Relating to the first influence,

sometimes I lack confidence because I fear of making the conversation goes

unwell. I prefer to be silent than make a mistake.” (Respondent 6)

It is also interesting to point out that these two top-ranking variables are both

trait variables. It suggests that the majority of students agree that the reasons

which hinder them from speaking English are their own traits – something that

comes from within themselves.

Some of the students gave an explanation that combined both trait and situational

variables, together:

“I'm afraid when I do mistakes it will make something’s that make me

uncomfortable, for ex: I'm afraid that people will say that I talk with wrong

word/structure then make me shy/embarrassed.” (Respondent 5)

“Because of students don't have a confidence and fear that many friends laugh

at you when you speak English.” (Respondent 8)

This suggests that trait and situational variables are also interrelated in

influencing students’ WTC in English.

E. CONCLUSION

From this research, we discovered that almost all students are actually willing to

speak in English with their peers, and most of them are able to speak in English at

least frequently within their conversation. Meanwhile, the top three reasons behind

their hesitance to speak in English are low confidence, fear of making mistakes,

and the unsupportive behavior of the students at campus. These findings are

actually reasonably consistent with the considerations in our experiment. If all the


reasons above are indeed the true reasons behind students’ hesitance to speak

English, the experiment in this research proved number of things:

1. Confidence, competency, and anxiety are interrelated traits that really do affect

students WTC in English. In the experiment, the interview was done individually

and privately to minimize exposure and anxiety. We asked easy questions that

did not require answers uttered in complex English expressions (very basic

competency). The result was that almost all the students spoke in English. In

addition, most of them had a high WTC score, so most of them could speak

English at least frequently within the conversation.

2. Students were afraid of mocking and they wanted other students to initiate

speaking in English. This is a situational factor – the social learning context. In

the experiment, the interviewer, as a fellow student at campus, acted as a

student with high WTC. Therefore, she always spoke in English and initiated the

conversation with a positive attitude. The result was that almost every student

imitated the initiator and spoke in English.

Of course, further research is necessary to dig deeper into this issue and find the

best possible solutions. Nevertheless, hopefully this research can be beneficial for

both students, lecturers, and the decision-makers of STBA LIA Yogyakarta. After

uncovering some of the reasons why students hesitate to speak in English and the

tendencies that occur in their conversation with their peers, we can all try to devise

ways to overcome the situation and encourage students to speak English more often.


F. REFERENCES

Cameron, Denise. Willingness to Communicate in English as a Second Language as a Stable Trait or Context-Influenced Variable: Case Studies of Iranian Migrants to New Zealand. Auckland University of Technology. 2012

Donovan, Leslie and Peter D. MacIntyre. Age and Sex Differences in Willingness to Communicate, Communication Apprehension, and Self-Perceived Competence. Communication Research Reports, Vol. 21, No. 4. 2004.

Juhana. Psychological Factors that Hinder Students from Speaking in English Class. Journal of Education and Practice, Vol. 3, No. 12. 2012

MacIntyre, Peter, Patricia A. Babin, and Richard Clement. Willingness to Communicate: Antecedents and Consequences. Communication Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 2. Spring 1999.

Sri Endah Setia Rini. Modul Statistik Dalam Penelitian Bahasa. STBA LIA Yogyakarta. 2014

Yousef, Reem, Hazri Jamil, and Nordin Razak. Willingness to Communicate in English: A Study of Malaysian Pre-Service English Teachers. Canadian Center of Science and Education. 2013

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A Research on Students’ Interest in Using English to Speak with Their Peers

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