Students’ Problems in Speaking English (The Study of First Year at English Department FKIP Bung Hatta University)

Abstrak

Speaking is one of the most important skills in communication, because through speaking people can communicate with others, and it is one of the abilities to carry out oral expressions of  idea. To speak English is not easy, and  the students should have the ability to speak English in order that they can communicate with others. Savage in Mariannes (2001:101) states that speaking is seen as the central skill, if learmers don’t get used to speak English, they will have a problem in learning English. It can be said that  speaking is a basic ability that must be possessed by students. So it is necessary to do result to find out students ‘ speaking problem at English department FKIP Bunghatta University.

The purpose of  this research, the researcher to find out   the  student’s problems in speaking English. In this research, The total sample members were 26 students. They were chosen by using total sampling technique. The data were collected through speaking test. To make the test reliable, the researcher used inter-rater technique. It means that there were two scorers to check the students’ speaking recording. The correlation index of two scores was 0.62. It means that the test was reliable.

The result of this research showed that the students had problem in grammar (69,2%) , 12 students (46.2%) who had problems in vocabulary, and only 1 student  had problems in pronunciation. Meanwhile the students did not have problem in content and fluency because the percentage was 0%.

It can be concluded that the first year students of English Department FKIP Bung Hatta University had grammar  problems in speaking English. The lecturers are suggested to pay attention  to students grammar when they speak English. Because the students have problem in grammar (69,2%). Besides the lecturers are suggested to give more exercise in grammar aspect in speaking .Students are suggested to minimizie the grammar problem in speaking by more exercise in speaking especially in grammar aspect.

Keyword: Speaking, Speaking English, Students’ Problem,