LEARNERS’ SOCIAL STATUS AND THEIR ATTITUDE IN LEARNING
ENGLISH
(STATUS SOSIAL PELAJAR 'DAN SIKAP MEREKA DALAM BELAJAR)
(A case Study at the fifth grade of an Elementary School
in Ciamis)
Herwanto, Iis Nurjanah,
Lilis Suryani,
Pipih Nofitasari and Yeni Nurwahidah
English Department,
Galuh University
4-I
Abstract
Undestanding individual learners differences is very important.
Individual differences is a variation among individuals in regard to a single
characteristic or number of characteristics. The characteristic itself is
distinguished by some factors that make one individual different from another.
This study investigates the individual learner differences that indicated by
their parent’s occupation and education (social status). Particularly, at the
fifth grade of an Elementary School in Ciamis. In this regard, a question is addressed.
How do learners’ attitude in learning English due to their social status?. To
get the data, the researchers administered observation to the students and
interview to the teacher in one of Elementary School in Ciamis Regency. The
result show that learners’ attitudes are different in learning process, especially
learning English, some learners show good attitudes and the others can’t show
the good one because of a factor of differences. The differences itself is
caused by their individual differences indicated by their parent’s occupation
and education.
Key words : individual
learners’ differences, social status, learners’ attitude.
1.
INTRODUCTION
Every
learner is different. Why are some learners more or less suceesful than others?
The reason probably that learners are not homogeneous. They are different in
some characteristics. Thus, each individual is different from the other. These
individual differences are defined by Dorney (2005) as cited in Zafar and
Meenakshi (2012, p. 639) as “enduring personal characteristics that are assumed
to apply everybody and on which people differ by degree.” The learners
individual differences itself is indicated by some factors namely, age, sex,
aptitude, motivation, learning style, learning strategies, personality, social
status or background and economic factor.
In this research, the researchers intend to investigate the learners’
social status and their attitude. It has been observed that students’ attitude
is related to their socioeconomic variables. According to Zafar and Meenakshi
(2012, p. 639) socio-economic factor is usually determined by level of
education and occupation of the parents of the learners. Moreover, Akhtar
(2010) states that “the home environment influenced by many factors such as
parents education, job, attention and income”. All these factors called
Socio-economic Status (SES).
In order to prove that socio economic status effect the attitude of
learners, the research seeks to answer the question “How do learners’ attitude
in learning English due to their social status?”
2.
LITERATURE RIVIEW
2.1 Socio-economic Status
Socio economic status in this study can be described by a
students individual position with in a hierarchical social structure based in
their family member’s occupation, education, income, wealth, and place of
residence. A family's
socioeconomic status is based on family income, parental education level,
parental occupation, and social status in the community (such as contacts
within the community, group associations, and the community's perception of the
family) note (Demarest,
Reisner, Anderson, Humphrey, Farquhar, and Stein ,1993, cited in Sherly et.al., 2012). According to the
statement above, the researchers
investigated the learners’ attitude toward English learning by focusing
on social status including parents’ occupation and their level education.
According to Rumberger(1995) as cited in Sherly et.al
(2012) states that “family background is widely recognized as the most
significant important contributor to succes in schools”. This statement
supports the finding of a research that the home has a major influence on
student’s school success and that it is the quality of relationship between the
students’s home environment and their school performance and attitude (Swick
& Duff, 1978, cited in Sherly et. al., 2012). Additionaly, Jacobs and
Harvey established that many variables in the family background have strong
associations with students’ succes throughout school, such as educational and
occupational attainment. That variable include family structure (socio-economic
status and family status).
2.2 Definition of Attitude
The terms attitude
usually connected with the concepts which concern with the physical or the
position on one’s body. Gardner (1985, p. 91) claims that “attitude is an
avaluative reaction to some referent or attitude object, inferred on the basis
of individual’s beliefs about the referent.” Moreover, eveyik (1999, p. 21)
states that “attitude is the state of readiness to respond to a situation and
anclination to behave in a consistent manner toward an object.” Students’
attitude on a subject in the classroom can affect their performance in the
classroom. Student’s attitude is one of factor that determine their success in
language learning. Candian and Mercer (2001) state that “attitude towards the
target language, its speakers and the learning context may all play some part
in explaining their success or failure.”
Gardner
(1985) has defined the concept of attitude as the way in which a person thinks,
feels and proposes to behave towards something. Montano
and Kasprzyk (2008) as cited in
Zahid and Ghani (2014, p. 3762) described that attitude
may be determined by the individuals’ thinking and ideas about behavioural
beliefs and beliefs are given importance by the evaluations of the traits
performed in different situations. In this way, the people who have positive
beliefs about anything will definitely end up in positive attitude and positive
behaviour and similarly, the people with negative beliefs will consequently
have negative attitude and behaviour about anything.
2.3
Importance of attitude
Reid (2003, p. 33) as cited in Abidin (2012, p. 120)
states that “Attitudes are important to us because they cannot be neatly
separated from study”. Attitude is considered as an essential factor
influencing language performance (Visser, 2008, cited in Abidin, 2012, p.
120). Achievement in a target language
relies not only on intellectual capacity, but also on the learner’s attitudes
towards language learning. This means that learning language should be
approached primarily as a social and psychological phenomenon rather than as a
purely academic one.
2.4 Language
Attitude
Besides the
intellectual perspective, the nature of language learning has psychological and
social aspects and depends primarily on the learners’ motivation and attitude
to learn the target language (Padwick, 2010, cited in Abidin, 2012, p. 122).
Gardner and Lambert (1972) have concluded that the ability of the students to
master a second language is not only influenced by the mental competence or,
language skills, but also on the students’ attitudes and perceptions towards
the target language. They also advocated that attitude concept could enhance
the process of language learning, influencing the nature of student’s behaviors
and beliefs towards the other language, its culture and community, and this
will identify their tendency to acquire that language. Baker (1992, p. 9) as
cited in Abidin (2012, p. 122) states that,
“In the life of a language,
attitudes to that language
appear to be important in language restoration, preservation, decay or death.”
Moreover De Bot et al. (2005) as cited in Abidin (2012, p. 122)
assert that language teachers, researchers and students should acknowledge that
high motivation and positive attitude of students facilitate second language
learning. Thus, if a learner does not have the interest and tendency in
acquiring the target language to communicate with others, this learner will
possess a negative attitude and will not be motivated and enthusiastic in
language learning. Therefore, learners’ attitudes could incorporate in language
learning because it may influence their performance in acquiring the target
language.
2.5 Aspects of Language Attitude
Learning
process is regarded as a positive change in the individual’s personality in
terms of the emotional, psychomotor (behavioral) as well as cognitive domains,
since when one has learned a specific subject, he/she is supposed to think and
behave in a different manner and one’s beliefs have been distinguished (Kara,
2009, cited in Abidin, 2012, p. 123). Furthermore, learning process has social
as well as psychological aspects besides the cognitive approach. Attitude concept
can be viewed from these three dimensions. Each one of these dimensions has
different features to bring out language attitude results. Accordingly, the
attitude concept has three components i.e., behavioral, cognitive and
affective. These three attitudinal aspects are based on the three theoretical
approaches of behaviorism, cognitivism and humanism respectively. In the
following, the three aspects of attitude concept i.e., behavioral, cognitive,
and emotional aspects are briefly described.
2.5.1
Behavioral Aspect of Attitude
The behavioral
aspect of attitude deals with the way one behaves and reacts in particular
situations. In fact, the successful language learning enhances the learners to
identify themselves with the native speakers of that language and acquire or
adopt various aspects of behaviors which characterize the members of the target
language community. Kara (2009) as cited in Abidin (2012, p. 123) stated that, “Positive attitudes lead to the exhibition
of positive behaviors toward courses of study, with participants absorbing themselves in courses
and striving to learn more. Such students are also observed to be more eager to solve problems,
to acquire the information and skills useful for daily life and to engage themselves emotionally.”
2.5.2
Cognitive Aspect of Attitude
This aspect of
attitude involves the beliefs of the language learners about the knowledge that
they receive and their understanding in the process of language learning. The
cognitive attitude can be classified into four steps of connecting the previous
knowledge and the new one, creating new knowledge, checking new knowledge, and applying
the new knowledge in many situations.
2.5.3
Emotional Aspect of Attitude
Feng and Chen
(2009) as cited in Abidin (2012, p. 123) stated that, “Learning process is an emotional process. It is affected by different
emotional factors. The teacher and his students engage in various emotional
activities in it and varied fruits of emotions are yield.” Attitude can
help the learners to express whether they like or dislike the objects or
surrounding situations. It is agreed that the inner feelings and
emotions of FL learners influence their perspectives and their attitudes
towards the target language (Choy & Troudi, 2006, cited in Abidin, 2012, p.
123).
2.6
Related Study
A study has been conducted to investigate socio economi
status and students’ attitude. For instance, Akram and Ghani (2013)
investigated SES and students’ attitude. The result show that there was a
significant differences between higher SES and lower SES in their attitude
toward English learning. The students belonging to higher SES have shown more
positive attitude toward English learning than the lower SES students. The
lower SES students have not shown equal interest in foreign language as the
higher SES students. Both the higher and lower SES students have equal motivational
in learning English.fglish
and
3.
METHOD
3.1 Participants
The population of this study were 25 students at fifth
grade of an Elementary School and 2 english teachers. Two students at the fifth
grade and one teacher of an Elementary School in Ciamis regency were taken as
the participants of this research. The sample were taken purposively. The
reason for choosing those students was because they were classified by their
social status indicated by their parents’ occupation and education. Their
parents have different occupation, such as a teacher, a farmer, a merchant etc.
Besides, their parents also have variance of their education level, some of
them graduated from Elementary School, Junior High School, Senior High School
even University. The information about parents’ occupation and education itself
was known from the teacher. The students were also chosen to observe their
attitude in the class, especially in English class.
3.2 Data Collection
Procedure
The data
were gained by administering the observation to the students and interview to
the teacher. In the observation, the researchers observe the students attitude
when they were learning English. The researchers also concern it based on the
student’s social status indicated by their parents’ occupation. And the
interview for the teacher deals with the information about the data of
students’ parents and their occupation and student’s attitude toward English
learning. This data drawn the individual learners’ differences indicated by
their social status.
3.3 Data Analysis
The data were analyzed qualitatively, especially the
researchers used a case study design.
4. FINDINGS
In interpreting the data, the researchers analyzed the
data from observation and interview. The data can be described as follows:
A.
Observation
The data from observation related to the students’
attitude in learning English, the higher students show positive attitude in
behavioural aspect. This phenomenon is described in the video when learning
process in running. (L) show negative attitude, it can be seen that he pay
little attention when hearing the teacher’s explanation. Sometimes he makes a
joke and disturb the other friends. (H) show positive attitude because she
focus on understanding to the teacher’s explanation.
From emotional aspect, (H) student has higher interest to
join in English class. It can be described their enjoyment when she concern the
teacher is acting out the expression and using pictures. And the student more
understand the expression by looking the teacher acting directly than by
looking the pictures. (L) studentshow different interest, he dominate to keep
silent when the teacher both acting out and using pictures to show the
expression.
From cognitive aspect, the higher student show better
cognitive skill than the low one. It can be seen from their performance in the
class. (H) student come forward to act some kind of expression about feelings
correctly and bravely. In the other hand, (L) student reluctant to come forward
and shy to perform the expression, so that she more choose to use a pictures
than to act out the expression.
B.
Interview
The result of teacher’s interview drawn that the students
from high economi status show better attitude in learning english than the low
one. It can be seen from the teacher’s response toward some questions related
to students’ attitude. For example: related to the students’ behaviour and
enthusiasm, the teacher said that:
1.
I thik both of them usually
come on time.
2.
Yes, Ido. Higher students doing
home work better than lower. Because higher is always get attention from their
parents especially in learning.
On
the other hand, the teacher give the response about students’ cognitive
attitude.
She said that:
3.
The higher more dominant. It means, the higher students more active to perform
their performance in learning process.
And,
about emotional attitude the teacher also give response.
4. Talk about interest, both of them have the same interest,
but the higher level get attention more from their parents when they can not
understand English, their family support and suggest them to follow some
activities, for example private. Not for lower level.
5. DISCUSSION
This section present a discussion of the study finding.
The finding is discussed according to the question. In the other word, the result
with regard to “How do learner’s attitude in learning English due to their
social status?”. This study was conducted to find out three aspects about
students’ attitude, i.e behavioural, emotional, and cognitive aspects. Based on
the result of data analysis, it can be concluded from classroom observation
that higher student show more positive attitude than the low one.
With reference to prevous study, it was noted that the
present finding was consistent with other study. The present study showed that
higher socio economic student show better attitude toward English learning than
lower. This is in harmony with the result of Akram and Ghani (2013), that
investigated socio economi status and student’s attitude. The result also shown
the higher student have shown more positive attitude than the lower one.
6. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
From the aforementioned result and discussion, the
question can be answered. The first, learners’ social status indicated by their
parents occupation and education give an effect toward their attitude in
learning English. The higher showed
better atitude than lower one. It proved by their positive attitude when they
are joining English class. The positive attitudes itself are drawn by the teacher’s response
toward the interview that give information about positive attitude that have shown
by the lower student in behaviour, emotional and cognitive aspect.
Another pact, also showed by observation. In classroom
actvities, the higher student show better interest, performance, and
enthusiasm. In contrary, the lower can not show the same attitude when learning
English.
Finally, to motivate the students in learning English,
the teacher are hoped more active to help the students in finding their
interest and enthusiasm. Likewise, the teacher are hoped increase their
teaching to develop the student’s cognitive skill.
REFERENCES
Abidin, Z. (2012). EFL students’ attitudes toward
learning English language: the case of Libyan secondary school students.
Retrieved on 28th March 2014 from URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ass.v8n2p119
Akram, M. and Ghani, M. (2013). The relationship of socioeconomic status with language learning
motivation. International Journal of English and Education. Vol.2, 2013
Al-Tamimi, A. And Shuib, M. (2009). Motivation
and attitudes towards learning English: A study of petroleum engineering
undergraduates at Hadhramout University of Sciences and Technology. GEMA
Online Journal of Language Studies. Vol. 9(2) 2009. Retrieved on 28th March 2014 from
http://www.mom.gov.ye/ar/news_53.htm.
Dornyei, Z. (2005). The psychology of
the language learner individual differences in second language acquisition.
London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahmaw, New Jersey.
Troike, M.S. (2006). Introducing second language
acquisition. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Zafar, S. and Meenakshi, K. (2012). Individual learners differences and second language acquisition: A
review. retrieved on 28th March 2014 from
http://ojs.academypublisher.com/index.php/jltr/article/download/jltr0304639646/6938
Zahid, Z. and Ghani, M. (2014). An association of learners’ attitude with anxiety: effects and
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March 2014 from www.euacademic.org.
APPENDICES
Aspect
|
Activity
|
Positive
|
Negative
|
Notes
|
Behavioral
|
1. Students’ attention during studying English
|
|||
2. student’s
activity to ask about the miss material
|
||||
Emotional
|
3. Students’ interest in studying English
|
|||
4. Students’ enjoyment in studying English
|
||||
Cognitive
|
5. Students’ understanding toward the material
|
|||
7.student’s performance in the class
|
Interview
1.
In your opinion, is there any differences of students’s enthusiasm
to come to class when the English is being thought. (indicated by student’s
social status)
2. Do you concern the
students in doing their homework? Is there any differences between a higher and
a lower social status in doing their homework?
3. How about their
performance in the class? Which one is
more dominant?
4. How about their
interest toward learning English?