Teachers’ Talk and Students’ Attitude in Learning English at Secondary Schools in Indonesia: A Correlational Analysis

Abstract

Teachers’ talk is a key tool for engaging students in learning. This research is carried out to examine the correlation between students’ attitude and teachers’ talk in learning English at secondary schools in Indonesia in which English is taught as a foreign language. These two aspects are substantial when learning objectives are to be achieved. Unlike the previous studies that focused more on the nature of teachers’ talk and its effect on the development of specific language skills, this study scrutinizes the interrelation between teachers’ talk and one of the individual differences possessed by language learners, i.e., attitude. Two research questions are formulated to be answered by this study. First, what types of attitude possessed by the learners and how they are classified? Second, how does teachers’ talk correlate with the learners’ attitude in the attempt of achieving the learning goals? A quantitative approach is applied in this study involving learners of two secondary schools, namely, SMAN 6 and SMKs Harapan Bangsa as research population in Sidrap, a district in South Sulawesi Province, Indonesia. The researcher used purposive sampling technique in choosing 160 research samples from these two secondary schools. The data were collected using questionnaire and a set of hypotheses testing is utilized to measure the normality, linearity/regression, validity, and the reliability of the instrument. Pearson correlation value formula by Pearson was used to determine whether correlation existed between teachers’ talk and students’ attitude in learning English. The result of the analysis shows the correlation coefficient between teachers’ talk (X) and students’ attitude (Y), which confirms that both variables have correlation, which was interpreted as fair. The Pearson correlation value, which in this case is 0.350, shows a tenuous positive correlation. The implication of this study lies on the importance of teachers’ talk in shaping the learners’ attitude, which in turn leads to the success of language learning.