Learning Speaking to English Education Department Students

ABSTRACT

      Some students are, in fact, more successful in learning speaking than other students given the same learning materials, doing the same classroom learning activities, and performing the same classroom tasks designed by the lecturers. The more successful learners show more satisfying results in speaking class if compared to the other students, the less successful ones The successful learners are more fluent, more accurate in grammar and pronunciation, show more confident in speaking, and they make use of the appropriate gesture and facial expressions in their speaking performances. I conducted this study as an attempt to describe how the more successful learners learn their speaking skills and the meaning of learning speaking to them. 

      The study is a phenomenological study conducted to answer the research question  What does learning speaking mean to learners?. It attempts at describing learners’ experience in learning speaking through a reflective learning practice. The study is conducted among three students of Undergraduate Program of English Education Department of the Faculty of Languages and Arts, Yogyakarta State University. I conducted the study there due to my real experiences, as an English lecturer in the place, in dealing with the efforts of developing speaking skills and communicative competence among her students. The data were collected by means of in-depth interview and direct observation. The interviews were particularly designed for students to reflect on their learning speaking process. What the students did when facing problems and difficulties, their way of learning independently, how they overcome the problems, and     how they learn from friends, lecturers, and native speakers, how they learn from and/or with the available learning resources like films and songs were the points in the interview. Students were audio-recorded during the interview to later transcribed and used as the data for the study. A weekly teaching diary was also used to document classroom activities to collect additional data. It documented what happened during the learning process, teacher’s feeling, students’ comment, and teaching-learning barriers. The diary was mostly beneficial when the researcher had to look back for additional information. 

      The findings of the study reveal three themes and its sub-themes. The first theme is learners’ efforts in learning, consisting of four sub-themes namely: 1. Seeking opportunities to practice speaking, 2. Self-talk, 3. Engaging in self-study, and 4. Learning from failures. The second theme is  learners’ self-recognition, with three sub-themes: 1. Recognizing weaknesses as learners, 2. Appreciating strengths, and 3. Identifying what one is capable of doing. The third theme is  learners’ self-fulfillment , consists of two sub-themes: 1. Pursuing one’s dream, and 2. Celebrating the joy of life. The last theme that emerges as the essential theme of the study is  indulging a passion for learning. This theme is believed to be the theme that makes the phenomena as it is.