TIPS FOR SHARPENING SELF-CONFIDENCE TO IMPROVE FOREIGN LEARNERS’ SPEAKING ABILITY

Larasatun Hasanah

NIM. 1610117320017

Abstract

Speaking is one of the most important skill in English to develop communication between one and one others. Speaking becomes the most difficult aspects than the others skill. It is because speaking not only learn about how to speak but also how to pronounce every words in English. Besides, there are many factors that affect speaking becomes difficult. One of them is self-confidence. Self-confidence can affect foreign learners’ speaking ability. This essay will deliver about tips for sharpening self-confidence to improve foreign learners’ speaking ability.

Keywords : Speaking, speaking ability, and self-confidence

Introduction

One of the abilities in English is Speaking ability. Speaking ability is one of the supporting tools in communicating using English. Speaking ability of each person is very diverse, some are fluent and even stammered. Whether someone is fluent or not, it depends on the confidence he or she has. Prada (2015) stated that self-confidence is one of the influential variables that affect foreign language learning. Self confidence is a belief that a person has in his or her ability. Many people who do not have high confidence to be able to communicate in English, causes the person stammer in speaking. Therefore, it is important to sharpening self-confidence. There are many ways that can be used to develop self-confidence in English classes (Nazarova and Umurova, 2016). Several ways to sharpening self-confidence those are having a lot of vocabulary, not too focus in grammar, listen and repeat, and mastery fluency.

Body

            Most of foreign learners’ think about difficult vocabulary rather than simple vocabulary. In other word, we can say that they only have less English vocabulary. Because of that, most of them have difficulty or still stumble in speaking. To increase vocabulary achievement, foreign learners can read several book that they want and underline the unfamiliar words for them. The learners also can make lists of new words and its meaning and make it into sentence. It is helpful for the learners to create their own sentence with vocabulary they are less familiar with (Nazarova and Umurova, 2016). When foreign learners have a lot of vocabulary, they will not stammer in speaking English cause they have known what is that word in English. At this stage, they have a good vocabulary of words and use simple phrases and sentences in their communication with others (Bashir, Azeem, and Hussain, 2011). Therefore, the first step to improve self-confidence is having a lot of vocabulary.

            Other way to be confidence in speaking is not too focus in grammar. Many foreign learners must have known about grammar and many of them are still thinking about grammar when they want to speak. This can make them keep thinking when they want to speak in English. Besides, it also make them stammered like saying “um…”, “uh…”, etc. Even tough grammar is an important role in English. But, when learners start a conversation in English. Grammar is not really important. Errors in grammar when speak are considered not crucial. As long as their intention and words are clear, it will not be a problem if there are several errors in grammar that learners say (in Cara Belajar Bahasa Inggris Dengan Cepat dan Mudah, 2015). Now, start not to think too much about grammar in speaking and do not be afraid to make grammar errors in speaking. It will make the foreign learners look more confidence when they speak in English.

            The activity that usually done in English classes also helpful to improve foreign learners’ confidence in speaking. This common activity is listen and repeat. Doff (1998) said that learners cannot improve their speaking ability unless they develop listening ability. It means that listening becomes important factor to develop self-confidence in speaking. That is why, most people said that listening and speaking are closely intertwined. Besides listening, repeating the words that spoken by the speaker can also help foreign learners. Learners can improve their speaking skill through listening and repeating (Mei and Masoumeh, 2016). For instance, foreign learners listen to a western song and then try to repeat the pronunciation of word that they heard or watch English news on TV. They can repeat the word several times until the pronunciation sounds like the speaker pronounce. When they are able to pronounce correctly, they will have the confidence to speak in English.

            The last way to improve self-confidence in speaking is mastery fluency. Fluency is the learners’ ability to speak in understandable way in order not to break down communication because listeners may lose their interest (Hughes, 2002). Making listeners able to understand what the foreign learners talking about is certainly very important. It is not useful if the learners can speak fluently in front of many people but what they say is not understandable. When what they are talking about is not understandable to the interlocutors, of course it will be awkward. Therefore, mastery fluency is also an important part in sharpening speaking ability. Besides, learners can also feel confidence when they can make the listeners catch what they mean.

Conclusion    

Shortly, self-confidence plays an important role in speaking. When learners have high self-confidence they can have good speaking and likewise, the learners who have low confidence they have bad speaking. To improve their self-confidence in speaking they can follow these ways. First, they must increase their vocabulary wether by reading a book and underline the new words or so on. Second, they must not too focus in grammar cause it will make them think about grammar a lot than speak. Third, they can listen and repeat to the music or news or so on, cause it will help them to improve their speaking ability. Then, the last is mastery fluency, cause make the listeners understand what you say is the important part in speaking cause it is unless if you can speak fluently but you can make people understand about what you said. The important thing that learners must have is do not be afraid to practice your speaking skill. Because expert said that practice make perfect.

REFERENCES

Bashir, Marriam and Azeem, Muhammad and Hussain, Ashiq Dogar.(2011).Factor Effecting Students’ English Speaking Skills.British Journal of Art and Social Sciences ISSN: 2046-9578, Vol. 2 No. 1.British Journal Publishing, Inc.

Cara Belajar Bahasa Inggris Dengan Cepat dan Mudah.(2015).https://ahlienglish.com/category/tips-belajar.23 Desember 2018.

Doff, A.1998.Teach English: A Training Course for Teacher.Cambridge University Press.

Hughes, R.(2002).Teaching and Researching Speaking.New York: Pearson Education.

Mei, Lei and Masoumeh, Seyedeh.(2017).An Analysis of Factors Influencing Learners’ English Speaking Skill.International Journal of Research in English Education.

Nazarova, G. P. and Umrova  Kh. H.(2016).Self-Confidence and Its Importance in Learning Languages.International Scientific Journal No. 4.

Prada, Hernando.(2015).Students’ Self-Confidence A Way To Improve English Oral Production in Tenth Grade Students at Ricaurte School.Research Project to The Faculty of Education with Emphasis on Didactics of Foreign Language.Bogota