Senior High Students’ Psychological Problems in Speaking
English as Foreign Language
(A Survey in a Senior High School in Bandung)
Alma Prisilya
English
Education, School of Postgraduate Studies, Indonesia University of Education
Abstract
Teaching
English in Indonesia is not typically same as in other countries. Not only does
the changes of curriculum, the lack of teachers’ competences, but more
importantly the students who learn English also faced some problems during the
learning process. It is supported by Ariffansyah (2013), “… problem will appear
if there is inappropriate between exception and reality. Another defines that a
problem will happen if someone’s necessity does not fulfill.” The way of
pronouncing the words and the written forms in English are counted as
inappropriate reality. It makes students confused, because the written language
and the oral language are different. Some of them get problems in those kinds
of linguistic matters and some are more in psychological problems. Therefore
the present study was aimed to discover the most common psychological problems
that face by senior high students in speaking English. Quantitative method was
employed by distributing close- ended questionnaire to 100 respondents out of
183 students. The result exhibited that students’ fear of derision, uneven
allocation of turn, and students’ incomprehensible inputs are the most common
psychological problems in speaking English which influence their oral
performances. To conclude, most of the students’ problems in speaking English
come from psychological aspects. Nonetheless, they are actually quite good in
written performances. Thus, teachers can minimize the speaking failure by
focusing on those common problems; creating a good classroom environment which
are fair to every student in the classroom; free of embarrassment and fun
activities, so that students can participate actively in speaking class.
Keywords: psychological problems, anxiety, speaking, English
*Copyright Alma, 2013
