Motivating the Reluctant Language Learners

MOTIVATING THE RELUCTANT LANGUAGE LEARNER
Presented
By
Drs. Abdullah Hasan, M.Ed
Drs. Aswir Astaman, M.Pd

A. INTRODUCTION

One can hardly deny that English plays a very important role in the major aspects of life in this global era. It is the most widely spoken language in the world, with more than 300 million speaking it as the first language, more than 200 million people speaking it as a second language, and over one billion people speaking it as a foreign language (Crystal, 1997). It is observed that most of the books of science and technology are written in English and much scientific information available on electronic media is also presented in English.
In Indonesia, English is one of the foreign languages taught, beginning from Elementary schools up to university. At the elementary level, English is taught as a local content at year one until three, while at year four to six, it becomes compulsory subject with two periods a week. At junior and senior high schools, English is offered as a compulsory subject with a time allocation four periods a week. At the university or college, it is accorded for two to six credit-hours and the curriculum focuses on English for specific purposes.
The objective of teaching English for Senior High school (SMA/MA) in Indonesia is to develop communicative competence in spoken and written English, and to gain informational literary level through developing skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. Having the mastery of the competence, learners are hoped to own the consciousness about the importance of English as one of foreign languages, and able to be competitive in global era and also to improve the learners’ understanding between language and culture. ( Badan Standar Nasional Pendidikan 2005: 2).
Zainil (2005:10) states that based on observations and experiences in teaching English at junior and senior high schools in Indonesia, in general, indicate that the teachers have done communicative language teaching for several years based on their different perceptions and understandings. Few teachers teach English in real situation, most of them do it inartificial ones, and some in both. Most of them teach it in large classes and a few teach it in small ones. A lot of them are not successful.

In the same case, most of the students as the language learners are passive. A lot of them are shy to use English in real communication. Many of them pay attention to forms and rules when they communicate with others. Most of them do not practice English in real communication and situations. Only few practice English the classroom. Most of the learners fail in acquiring English.
Suwarsih (2002: 142) points that a layman’s observation has indicated that senior high school graduates who have learned this language for six years, with almost 900 hours of school teaching, are unable to use this language for communication purposes. This phenomenon can also be observed among university graduates and even among faculty members, then that the teaching of English has so far been unable to achieve its declared goals despite many efforts made to improve its quality.
Many factors influence the students to gain the instructional objectives of English, such as, the students’ learning motivation, attitude and interest, the competence of the English teachers, lack of learning facilities , the students’ inadequate basic knowledge, irrelevant method and ineffective implementation of communicative approach and the reluctant English language learners in teaching and learning process. Among those factors, the reluctant language learner and its solution is discussed in this paper.
B. THE CONDITION OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNERS IN MOST SCHOOLS IN INDONESIA.

Dealing with language learning, Julian (1994:15) points out that ‘the key to learning is motivation. Never forget that’. It can be inferred that the higher the motivation, the better the achievement will be. The problem is that many students in Indonesia particularly in Riau province show low motivation in learning English. They come to class to fulfill their attendance list. Most of them are passive in teaching and learning process. Only some are brave to communicate in English. They are shy to speak English. They feel hesitate that they produce a lot of mistakes when they communicate in English Almost none of them practice English outside the classroom especially in rural areas.. Some learn English in order to gain their English grades.

The previous facts observed, experienced and researched indicate the teachers of English do not do the concepts of classroom techniques of communicative language teaching very well yet and t he students do not apply the good language learning strategies yet. Thus, to do the concepts, the teachers should understand them and to apply the strategies, the students should be able to apply them in teaching and learning process. The problem is ‘how is the solution to the problem of motivating the reluctant language learners?’. This paper tries to answer this question by discussing the related theories as. 1) the teaching guidelines to the teachers to use the classroom techniques in teaching and learning process.; 2) the learning guidelines for students to apply the good language learner strategies.
C. DISCUSSION
Developing communicative competence is one of the concepts of classroom techniques of teaching English. Hymes and Gunpens (1972:VII) state that communicative competence means ‘what a speaker needs to know to communicate effectively in a culturally significant setting’. Savignon (1983:9-43) supports the idea and discusses the four components communicative competence: grammatical competence, sociolinguistics competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence. Grammatical competence is the ability to recognize the lexical, morphological, syntactic and phonological features of language. Sociolinguistic competence is the ability to understand the appropriate meaning in social and cultural contexts. Discourse competence is the ability to interpret the communication of a series of sentences or utterances to form a meaningful whole. Finally, strategic competence is the ability to use the strategies to compensate an imperfect communication such as doing repetition, avoidance, guessing, or shifts in register and style in sustaining communication.

In developing communicative competence, the classroom techniques put more emphasis on the ‘use’ than ‘usage’. Usage then is one aspect of performance, that aspect which makes evident the aspect to which the language user demonstrates his knowledge of linguistic rules. Use is another aspect of performance: that which makes evident the extent to which the language user demonstrate his linguistics rules for effective communication (Widdowson, 1983:3)

When the focus of teaching is on use most of the time, the teacher has already maximized the students’ exposure to natural communication. Dulay, et al. (1982: 261-269) in his discussions on the research findings, from Research to Reality: implications for the Teacher, state ‘maximize the students’ exposure to natural communication”. For instance, the teacher uses the classroom techniques such as asking the real questions, accepting nonverbal responses, and responding to content when communicating with the students.

The techniques should be oriented to problem solving whether in the application of the use or the usage to motivate the students to be creative. The students’ creativity does not come up in a short time. Every teacher and student should keep in mind that someone gets better in creativity over a long period of time. His/Her creativity can be developed by applying the problem solving in the process of teaching English in the classroom. When the students solve a problem, they think of the causes of it and the ways how to overcome it. If they do it regularly in English, they will think logically and systematically in English, too.

Furthermore, use, usage, and problem solving as discussed previously need the comprehensible input, listening and reading in English. They should understand what they listen and read in English. Considering the comprehensible input, the focus of classroom techniques should be on the use. Focusing on the use most of the time develops the students’ communicative competence of English. Developing communicative competence builds their acquisition of the language. Building their acquisition improves their fluency. Improving their proficiency shows their fluent verbal or non verbal performance in speaking English. This process works with their fluent verbal performance in writing as well. They speak or write English fluently.
Zainil (2005:13) points out that the emphasis of classroom techniques should be less on the usage or theories, rules and forms of English. Emphasizing the usage develops the students’ linguistic competence. developing linguistic competence builds their learning. Building their learning improves their accuracy. Improving accuracy shows their accurate verbal performance in speaking English. This process works with their accurate performance in writing as well. They speak or write English accurately but not fluently.

Brown (1994:11-12) points out that the teacher is the most powerful person in the classroom. There are many ways for the teachers to use that power. . The teachers must organize, provide security, motivate, instruct, model, guide, inform, give feedback, encourage and evaluate the language learners. The followings are described the characteristics of successful English language teachers, and they are the most important things that need to be taken care of:
1. Organization – Learners must feel that their activity is purposeful, that they are putting their efforts in to framework they can trust. Learners need just enough structure so that they feel supported, and just enough freedom so that they have room for themselves to grow.
2. Security – If learners feel safe, they will be more able to take part in the lesson if they feel that everyone in class, including the teacher, is on the same side, they may risk making mistake that they can learn from.
3. Motivation-some learners will be motivated to learn for external reasons, which is a big help, but all learners need to involved in class-work. This happens best when they are motivated by interesting tasks, when they are motivated by interesting tasks, when they experience success, and when they see the relevance of class work to their outside lives.
4. Instruction – Learners need to be told new things, and told how to do new things
5. Modeling – Learners need to be shown new things, and how to do new things
6. Guidance – Learners need a helping hand to discover new things and to practice new skills.
7. information-learners need sources of extra information about what they are learning, which they can call on as required.
8. feedback-learners need to know how close they are getting to their targets.
9. encouragement-learners need to feel that the language in the developing inside them, even if what they are producing at the moment seems unlike standard English.
10. Evaluation-some learners have external standards that must be reached, important examinations to pass or fail. They need to know where they stand.

The good language learner strategies are the ways used by the learners to acquire the language successfully. They should be learned by the Indonesian students of English. They are not well known yet by the students. Furthermore, they do not realize their language learning strategies. Therefore, the good language learner strategies are useful for the teachers to teach and for the students to study and practice. The strategies have been pointed out by theoreticians and researchers (Rubin, 1975; Rubin and Thompson, 1982; Nation, 1985 Willing, 1988, and Zainil, 1994) For example , Stern (1980) points out ten language learner strategies: 1) Personal learning style, 2) Active Approach to the learning task; 3) constantly searching for meaning; 4) willingness to use the language in real communication; 5) effort to learn to think in the language; 6) willingness to guess; 7) creativity in learning; 8) willingness to focus in messages, not grammatical rules; 8) willingness to focus in messages, not grammatical rules; 9) effort to make anxiety low, and 10) continuous high motivation to study.
Furthermore the teachers apply scaffolding that is by using ESO strategies to scaffold instruction that is to enable English language learners to learn better by increasing their level of interest and motivation. ( Reiss: 2005 : 7).


The characteristics of good language learners are as follows: (Brown 1994:9):
1). The students have a positive attitude about the language they want to learn and about speakers of that language. 2). They have a strong personal motivation to learn the language. 3) They are confident that they will be successful learners. 4) They are prepared to risk making mistakes and they learn from the mistakes that they make.5) They like to learn about the language. 6) They organize their own practice of the language. 7) They find ways to say things that they do not know how to express correctly. 8) They get into situations where the language is being used and they use the language as often as they can. 9) They work directly in the language rather than translate from their first language. 10) They think about their strategies for learning and remembering and they consciously try out new strategies.
Various ways have been done to motivate the reluctant language learners:

• Impromptu speak
• Speech contest
• Story telling
• English debate
• English discussion
• Role play
• Poetry reading
• English song

After implementing those activities for several years, it shows that the result is not satisfying because they only involve limited numbers of students. At last, the solution to motivate the reluctant English language learners in Indonesia by establishing “English Speaking Community” at schools.



E. CONCLUSION

The teacher is the most powerful person in the classroom in order to motivate the reluctant language learners .The teachers must organize, provide security, motivate, instruct, model, guide, inform, give feedback, encourage and evaluate .the language learners. The good language learner strategies are useful for the teachers to teach and for the students to study and practice. Furthermore, the language learners apply the good language learner strategies, and understand the characteristics of good language learning. They own high motivation, positive attitude, self confidence, being prepared to risk of making mistakes, good interest toward English
The solution to the problems is that the teachers understand and apply the concepts of classroom techniques and be able to make the learners motivated and interested in learning English by using ESOL scaffolded strategies in teaching and learning English language in Indonesia. The good way to motivate the reluctant English language learners in Indonesia is to establish English Speaking Community at schools.







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