The Attitude of Indonesian Learners in Tertiary Level toward Spoken English and its Learning

Abstract

The aims of this study were to discover if the learners of English of UM English Education Department of UM Parepare experience problems in speaking English and if so, why, and what type of attitudes they have towards accents and how these attitudes influence their English speech. This study is a qualitative phenomenological research based on the linguistic phenomenon among Indonesian English learners derived from their learning experiences. The phenomenon in question shows that most Indonesian learners have learned English for 6+ years but still unable to communicate. Most of those learners complained about the ‘obsolete’ method of teaching which has been too focused on grammatical learning and fewer interests on the practical use of English itself. The data was taken from document reviews, in-depth interviews, and direct observation given to the importance of spoken English learning attitude. The findings obtained through interview and question on three level of scholars (fresh year students, sophomores and more senior students, and alumnus). The result of this study showed that most of students get difficult to speak English because of avoiding mistakes and error. This attitude of making mistake was derived from the social pressure situation in pronouncing their accent through the English words. Another finding is, there are many of students have some negative attitudes towards the Indonesian accent in pronouncing English words.