Tugas Writing Journal

THE INFLUENCE OF CROSS CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING IN LEARNING FOREIGN LANGUAGE TO INCREASE SPEAKING ABILITY

Anni Alimatul Azizah

State Institute for Islamic Studies of Metro, St. Ki Hajar Dewantara, 15 A Metro, Indonesia

Corresponding email: Anniazizah035@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

This study was aimed at increase student speaking ability. The total number of the assessment is found in the students' oral tests is 55 for grades less than 75 or less than the average and 110 for grades over 75 or more of the rated divided into five groups of assessment: Assessment in pronounce the words, assessment in their intonation, assessment in their articulation, assessment in fluency to pronounce the words, and in the used of diction. The results of the study indicate that the students faced many problems such as (1) they did not pronounced the words correctly; (2) they intonation is not true, so can make the listeners not understand; (3) they did not pronounced the words with the right articulation; (4) they did not fluency to pronounce the words; (5) they did not choose the right diction. The total assessment found in the students' oral test is 55 for grades less than 75 or less than average and 110 for grades over 75 or more of the average rated into five types of assessment. The result of the assessment analysis data shows that the most prominent assessment is the error in the production of verbs. There are 12 people who scored less than 75 and 21 people who scored more than 75 in assessment to pronounce the words. It is followed by the assessment in their intonation. The total number of this assessment is 11 people who score less than 75 and 22 people who score more than 75. The assessment in their articulation in the third rank with the total number of 9 people who scored less than 75 and 24 people Who scored more than 75. The next is the assessment of 10 people who scored less than 75 and 23 people who scored more than 75. The last is the assessment in the used Of diction with the total number of 13 people who scored less than 75 and 20 people who scored more than 75.

Keywords: Cross Cultural Understanding, Foreign Language, Speaking.

1.    INTRODUCTION

Language is very important in human life. We are able to communicate with other people that use language, not only it but also we are able to express our thought, our feeling and our experiences through language. There are many language in the world so, there are many countries have different language. We are able to communicate with other people in the world that use international language.

An international language that used in the world is English; it is a foreign language, especially in Indonesia. We learn English from elementary school till university. There are for skills in English learning should be able to mastery, those are: 1) listening 2) speaking 3) writing and 4) reading.

A Foreign language is a new language that is learnt by people. The new language is learnt only in formal education, but it's not used in the daily life. Example, Indonesian people learn English only in the school, but in their daily life, they never use it.

In learning foreign language, we must know the culture of the country that we are learning their language. Moreover, we as a person who learns the language of that State will not became misunderstandings in talking with people of that State. Then, studying the culture of the State whose language we are studying is a necessity to avoid misunderstanding between us and those of that State.

Culture is a view structure of human activities that consist of behaviors, values, arts, beliefs, languages, custom, behavior, religion, law, integrity, and code of honors. In studying the culture we must understand what is cross cultural understanding, where this cross cultural understanding learns cultural issues in each country, the language used in each country, how people in each country greet each other and learn about how religion there, Beliefs held, behavior, values and so on.

According to Levine and Adelman (1993), cross-cultural or intercultural communication occurs between people from different cultures. Moreover, Williams (2003) defined cross-cultural communication skills as the ability to efficiently interact with people of different cultures. Hinner (1998) referred to the same concept as the ability to communicate verbally and nonverbally with members of different cultures, and in a manner that communicative messages were not given erroneous interpretations. Whereas, some researchers suggested that the familiarity of the cultures in which the communication took place was a key component of many existing cross-cultural training programs (Gudykunst, William & Young, 1984).[1]

After we learn about the culture of the country whose language we learn by understanding about cross cultural understanding, then, we can speak foreign languages well without making the people who hear us is misunderstand with the purpose of our conversation.

On the other hand, we can do the better in improving our speaking skills because we already understand how we should to talk toward understand the culture in every country. Indirectly, our speaking skills will increase over time as we study the cultural problem of how we should speak well without making people offended by our utterances because the purpose of our conversation does not reach those who listen it.

Speaking is one of skills in learning English that is very important, because speaking is an interactive process of constructing meaning that involves producing, receiving and processing information. We can say that speaking means to conversed or expressing one’s thoughts and feelings in spoken language. To speak often implies conveying information. It may be from an informal remark to a scholarly presentation to a formal address. Speaking skills are the skills that give us the ability to communicate effectively. Speaking skills also help to assure that one will not be misunderstood by those who are listening.

2.    METHODS

This study was categorized into a case study by using a quantitative approach. Quantitative research is a process of finding data in the form of knowledge which uses the numbers as a means of finding information about what we want to know. In general, quantitative research can be carried out as well as descriptive research. Quantitative research can also be a research relationship or correlation study, quasi-experimental research, and experimental research.[2] The aim of this study was to increase speaking ability and to know about the culture from the other countries.

Sugiyono (2011: 126) states that the larger amount of the sample will minimize the generalization mistakes.[3] The instruments for collecting the data in this study were an oral test. The test was used to gather data about speaking performance. The test included the pronunciation, the intonation, the articulation, the fluency and diction of their speaking. Not only that butt also have we tested about their vocabulary. In conducting the test, the students did spontaneously to get the authentic data. It means that they were not given treatment before the test.

3.    RESULTS

The collected oral tests were identified. Next, the identified data were classified according to the criteria of assessment. After that, less value and more than 73 or average value of each criteria of assessment was counted. The next step was explaining the assessment. The calculation of the assessment can be seen in Table 1.

Table 1

Result of the assessment

No	Criteria of assessment	<73	>73
1	Pronunciation	12	21
2	Intonation	11	22
3	Articulation	9	24
4	Fluency	10	23
5	Diction	13	20
Total number		55	110

The total number of the assessment is found in the students' oral tests is 55 for grades less than 75 or less than the average and 110 for grades over 75 or more of the rated divided into five groups of assessment: Assessment in pronounce the words, assessment in their intonation, assessment in their articulation, assessment in fluency to pronounce the words, and in the used of diction.

There are three assessments in pronounce the words, such as: always pronounce the word with the correct pronunciation and listeners can understand the intent, pronunciation is good but the audience less familiar with intent words, and the Pronunciation still not completely so that the listener does not understand the purpose of his words.

There are three assessments in intonation, such as: the intonation is good so that the listeners can understand what their feel, the intonation less good so that the listener is less understand what their feel, and the intonation is not good that makes the listener does not understand at all about the words and what their feel.

There are three assessments in articulation, such as: always speak with a clear articulation so that the listener knows the intent, articulation is already nearly perfect but the audience is still not sure what the purpose of his words, and articulation is not clear so that the listener does not understand his point.

There are three assessments in fluency to pronounce the words, such as: fluent in pronounce the words can make the listeners understand what their mean, less fluent in pronounce the words can make the listeners less understand what their mean, and not fluent in pronounce the words can make the listeners does not understand what their mean.

There are three assessments in the used of diction, such as: exact in the used of diction can make listeners know what their mean and what is the purpose, less Exact in the used of diction can make listeners less understand what their mean and what is the purpose of their speak, and not Exact in the used of diction can make listeners do not know what their mean and what is the purpose of their speak and can make the listeners misunderstanding.

There were many factors affecting students speaking performance such as: topical knowledge, listening ability, motivation to speak, teachers’ feedback during speaking activities, confidence, pressure to perform well, and time for preparation.[4]

4.    DISCUSSIONS

In improving the speaking ability there are several factors that must be learned first, such as; the first is learn how to pronounce the word well and correctly. The second is learning articulation correctly so that what we say is not wrong. The third is learn the right intonation, how to make the listener know the meaning of the saying whether it is angry or something else. The fourth is fluent in pronounce a sentence or word in English, if we not fluent, people will be lazy to hear it and just silent without any response at all. The last is choose the good and correct diction, because if we choose the wrong word then most likely the intent of what we are talking about will not be conveyed even will lead to misunderstandings between the speaker and the listener.

Learning foreign language not only must have good speaking skills, but also we need to know a good way to convey something so as to avoid misunderstandings. Of course, to understand all that we need to know what kind of talking culture is commonly used in the country. For example, greeting, every country has a different way of greeting. For example in USA they do peace bumping for greeting while in Tibet they do sticking out the tongue to each other.

In addition we also need to know whether in the country use verbal communication or non verbal communication in everyday life and whether they use ping pong conversation styles or bowling conversation styles. For example countries that use ping pong conversation style is America, Russia, Italy, Spanish, and Germany. Examples of countries using bowling conversation styles are Japan, Korea, Indonesia, China, and all of the Asian countries used it.

To learn all these things we must study Cross Cultural Understanding. Therefore, we will know the right and correct way of speaking to each others in different countries and will not lead to misunderstandings because we do not know the good way to say something.

From the graph above we can concluded that, if the students understand about Cross Cultural Understanding well, then automatically he will have good speaking ability so that will not make the listener to be misunderstood.

If the student can understand about Cross Cultural Understanding well, then the student has been included in the criteria of the first assessment is good and high.

If the students understand about Cross Cultural Understanding but there are still some who do not understand well, then the student is included in the second assessment criteria that is good but still in the middle level.

While students who have a good understanding of the Cross Cultural Understanding are still lacking and are not very clear on what is meant or the student understands very little about Cross Cultural Understanding, the student is still very poor in his or her comprehension and the student is included in the third criterion low.

In conclusion, if the students already understand how and what is the meaning of Cross Cultural Understanding then they will understand how to speak well in unity with the culture of the country itself then automatically with frequent training and add vocabulary continuously in the learning, the student will increase Their speaking abilities.

CONCLUSIONS

As mentioned earlier, this study aimed to increase students speaking ability. The results of the study indicate that the students faced many problems such as (1) they did not pronounced the words correctly; (2) they intonation is not true, so can make the listeners not understand; (3) they did not pronounced the words with the right articulation; (4) they did not fluency to pronounce the words; (5) they did not chose the right diction. Therefore, the results show that there were many factors affecting students speaking performance as follow: (1) topical knowledge; (2) listening ability; (3) motivation to speak; (4) teachers’ feedback during speaking activities; (5) confidence; (6) pressure to perform well and (7) time for preparation.

The total assessment found in the students' oral test is 55 for grades less than 75 or less than average and 110 for grades over 75 or more of the average rated into five types of assessment. The result of the assessment analysis data shows that the most prominent assessment is the error in the production of verbs. There are 12 people who scored less than 75 and 21 people who scored more than 75 in assessment to pronounce the words. It is followed by the assessment in their intonation. The total number of this assessment is 11 people who score less than 75 and 22 people who score more than 75. The assessment in their articulation in the third rank with the total number of 9 people who scored less than 75 and 24 people Who scored more than 75. The next is the assessment of 10 people who scored less than 75 and 23 people who scored more than 75. The last is the assessment in the used Of diction with the total number of 13 people who scored less than 75 and 20 people who scored more than 75.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my lecturer Mr. Much Deiniatur who helped, supported and encouraged me while I conducted this study.

Last but not least, I would especially thank to my family, my close friends and my classmates who supported and encouraged me to conduct this study

REFERENCES

Loretta Ya-Wen Teng, A Cross-cultural Communication Experience at a Higher Education Institution in Taiwan, education journal, introduction, page 2

Margono, metodologi penelitian pendidikan, cetakan ke-8 (Jakarta: PT.Rineka Cipta, 2010), page 105

Nguyen Hoang Tuan and Tran Ngoc Mai, 2015, Factors Affecting Students’ Speaking Performance At Le Thanh Hien High School, Asian Journal of Educational Research, Volume 3, Number 2, page 9Gajah Putih, journal of education, Volume 8, Number 1, page 61

Sungkawati Kardi Wahyuningsih, 2015, Grammatical errors analysis in the descriptive writing of the semester 3 students of English Education Department of STAIN

APPENDICES

Instrument oral test

1.      Telling about your personal identity?

2.      Telling about your family?

3.      Telling about your home?

4.      Telling about your school?

5.      Telling about your friends?

---

[1] Loretta Ya-Wen Teng, A Cross-cultural Communication Experience at a Higher Education Institution in Taiwan, education journal, introduction, page 2

[2] Margono, metodologi penelitian pendidikan, cetakan ke-8 (Jakarta: PT.Rineka Cipta, 2010), page 105

[3] Sungkawati Kardi Wahyuningsih,2015, Grammatical errors analysis in the descriptive writing of the semester 3 students of English Education Department of STAIN Gajah Putih, journal of education, Volume 8, Number 1, page 61.

[4] Nguyen Hoang Tuan and Tran Ngoc Mai, 2015, Factors Affecting Students’ Speaking Performance At Le Thanh Hien High School, Asian Journal of Educational Research, Volume 3, Number 2, page 9