Tesis

The effect of contracting approach for improving students’ speaking ability by reducing anxiety / Ade Hamka

Abstrak
Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) has been a persistent problem in foreign language classes for many years. Although plenty of research has been conducted to identify the causes of anxiety and offer suggestions to both teachers and students to reduce anxiety for better speaking performance most of the research has only focused on causes and suggestions without any interventions conducted in the classroom. Therefore it is suggested that the Foreign Language Anxiety Reduction (FLAR) approach be implemented in the classroom. The contracting approach is one of the recent approaches that has been successful in reducing anxiety when speaking English. This approach involves an agreement between the teacher and student to achieve specific learning aims expectations and responsibilities of both parties. Therefore this study aims to re-examine the use of the contracting approach to reduce anxiety when speaking English and discover students perspectives towards the implementation of the contracting approach. This study utilized a quasi-experimental design. Participants were two tenth-grade classes from MAN 1 Medan comprising 63 students divided into two groups experimental and control group. The lottery was conducted to determine groups by delegating each class captain as a representative. The experimental group was asked to sign a contract containing several points to be fulfilled such as voluntary speaking frequency commitment to speak actively and diary keeping at every meeting. Meanwhile the control group was not asked to sign any contract and was merely told to participate actively in the classroom. A pre-test was done to gather anxiety levels and speaking scores of both groups with the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) questionnaire and speaking test respectively before the treatment. The treatment was done in four meetings and was observed by the host teacher who took notes on students contract fulfillment. After the treatment was finished both experimental and control groups were asked to fill out the FLCAS questionnaire and tested to obtain speaking post-test results. The data for this study were taken from adapted and modified FLCAS questionnaires by Horwitz speaking tests and diary entries. FLCAS questionnaire and speaking test results before and after treatment were analyzed and compared with sample t-test and paired t-test for normal data and Mann-Whitney test and Wilcoxon test for not normal data. The comparison test of anxiety scores before and after the treatment to the experimental group utilized a paired sample t-test. A significant value (p) of 0.307 (p gt 0.05) indicates that there is no significant difference in anxiety before and after the treatment in the experimental group. Furthermore the comparison test of speaking scores before and after the treatment to the experimental group utilized the Wilcoxon test. A significant value (p) of 0.000 (p lt 0.05) shows that there is a significant difference between speaking before and after the treatment towards the experimental group. The control group with similar tests received a significant value (p) of 0.080 (p gt 0.05) which indicates that there is no significant difference in anxiety before and after the treatment and a significant value (p) of 0.002 (p lt 0.05) for speaking which means that there is a significant difference towards speaking after the treatment. It should be noted that before the experiment the experimental group obtained an average of 103.91 with a standard deviation of 17.56. Meanwhile the control group obtained an average of 98.06 with a standard deviation of 23.99. After the experiment was conducted the experimental group obtained an average of 101.84 with a standard deviation of 18.50 while the control group obtained an average of 95.45 with a standard deviation of 25.01. Therefore there was a decrease in the average anxiety levels in both groups. The experimental group experienced a decrease of 2.06 while the control group experienced a decrease of 2.61 on average. Diary entries revealed that students showed engagement self-efficacy self-reflection reduced fear and strengthened characters such as commitment and self-confidence. For instance some students stated that they felt happy and promised to do better in the next meeting which shows engagement. At the same time others stated that they felt more confident to speak which shows changes in self-efficacy. Self-reflection is demonstrated through statements such as I feel awkward I want to practice to be braver I know my pronunciation is bad. Lastly some students reported that they obtained less anxiety to start speaking. As the treatment occurred the host teacher noted students participation in the classroom. Overall there was an average participation rate of 42.8%. Therefore nearly half of the class actively participated. The findings show that the contracting approach can help students reduce their anxiety in speaking and improve their speaking performance. In addition the contracting approach shares some positive attitudes as demonstrated by the diary entries written such as engagement self-efficacy self-reflection reduced fear and strengthening character of commitment and self-confidence.

Informasi Detail

DDC

Rt 420.83 HAM e

Prodi

Universitas Negeri Malang. Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, 2024.

Deskripsi Fisik

xiv, 79 lembar : ilus. ; 30 cm

Bahasa

No Reg

00299/RT/24

Edisi

Tesis (Pascasarjana)--Universitas Negeri Malang. 2024

Subjek

1. BAHASA INGGRIS - BERBICARA - STUDI DAN PENGAJARAN
2. ENGLISH - SPEAKING - STUDY AND TEACHING

Pembimbing

1. Prof. Dr. Hj. Nur Mukminatien, M.pd;2. Dr. Ahmad Heki Sujiatmoko, M.pd

Lampiran Berkas