CHAPTER II

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

A. Speaking

1. Definition of Speaking

Men are social being who always need the other in their life. In order to

facilitate their efforts to provide themselves with the necessities to live, human

beings have to cooperate for one another, which can only be carried out in the

community.

Speaking is the important thing for normal human in their daily activities.

With speaking we can communicate, speak the ideas, delivery the purposes and

messages and express the feelings in any kind of emotional condition with the

others.

If we observe in our daily activities, there are many people who speak for

variety purposes. Yet, not all of them have a good ability to convey the content of

the message with the result that it can be understood appropriately with their aim.

In other words, not all of people have a good speaking ability to harmonize

between their mind or feeling and their speech, so the audience can easily receive

the message comprehensively.

Speaking about simple things probably is not a serious problem for common

people, but explaining the idea usually become a main problem for non-expert

people, moreover not all of people able to master this skill well.

It seems that it cannot be abstained that speaking has a significant role in

human’s life. Speaking is the most vital tool in communication. Someone’s

5
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speaking ability is determining his/her successful career. Speaking can be a great

unifier for social groups in the society. In many cases, the problems that faced by

two individuals or groups are solved with communication/speaking.

H. G. Tarigan noted that “speaking is language skill which develops in

child’s life and always started with listening skill.”1 He also defined that

“speaking is a skill of conveying words or sounds of articulation to express or to

deliver ideas, opinions, or feelings.”2 He added “speaking is a human’s behaviour

which exploits physical, psychological, neurological, semantic, linguistic factors

extensively, so it’s considered as the most important tool in human’s social

control.”3

Mackey stated in his book, ”Speaking is the most complex of linguistics

skill, since it involves thinking of what is to be said while saying what has been

thought.”4

Speaking skill basically must be possessed of all men who need

communication in their activity, in one-directional-communication or multi-

directional-communication. A man who has great speaking skill is usually finds

easy of his relationship with the other. With his ability, every ideas, opinions or

feelings which stated are easy to be received, so the communication that he made

sets everyone at ease.

Weaver, Borchers and Smith had a notion in their book, “speaking is an

aspect of human behaviour, and it is learned behaviour in the same sense that

handwriting, spelling, or table manners are learned behaviour even though skills

1 Henry Guntur Tarigan, Berbicara Sebagai Suatu Keterampilan Berbahasa, (Bandung,

Angkasa, 1985), p.3
2 Ibid. p. 15
3 Ibid. p. 21
4 W. F. Mackey, Language Teaching Analysis, (London, Longman, 1978), p. 263
 7

in speaking may be somewhat more complex.”5 According to them that speaking

involves many things, habits, attitudes, and generalized abilities by reason of the

nature of the environment and experiences from early childhood.

They also explained further, “speaking is always a total act, involving all of

basic elements, voice, visible action, language, and mental processes, in an

inseparable integration.”6 For this reason, they commonly describe an act of

speaking or a speech situation not in terms of its characteristic elements, but in

terms of the forms of speech which it involves.

John F. Wilson and Carroll C. Arnold realized that the values of definitions

formulated from other vantage points and emphasizing special aspects of speech

be the physiological or physical, and sociological aspects. They chose to look at

speech as a phenomenon consisting of substance, process, and function. They

concluded, “Speaking is thought conceived, transmitted, and expressed by brain,

voice, and body, producing stimuli for auditors and for the speaker himself; and

influencing subsequent thoughts, feelings, and actions.”7

Micken stated, “Speaking is not something that comes before doing; neither

is it something that goes on instead of action.”8 Rather it is a form of action. It is

doing. In many situations the first thing to do is to talk matters over.

5 Andrew Thomas Weaver, Gladys Louise Borchers, Donald Kliese Smith, The Teaching of
Speech, (Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, New York 1965), p. 3
6 Ibid. p. 265
7 J. F. Wilson and Carroll. C. Arnold, Public Speaking as a Liberal Art, (Allyn and Bacon,
Inc, Boston 1965). p. 10
8 Ralph A. Micken, Speaking for Result, (Southern Illinois University, The Riverside Press,
Cambridge). p. v
 8

2. Aim of Speaking

The main aim of speaking is to communicate. In order to express the

feeling effectively, the speaker must comprehends all of things that he said; he

must able to evaluates the effect of the communication to his audience; and also

able to knows the principles which provides a basis for all of speaking situations,

either generally or individually.

Commonly, the speaking purposes divided into three kinds;9

a. To inform

b. To entertain

c. To persuade

Blending or mixing process between two purposes is probably occurred. For

example, a conversation which consists of informing speaking and entertaining

speaking.

In other book, J. F. Wilson and C. C. Arnold explained the speaking

purposes in five objectives;10

a. Speaking to Inform

There are times when speakers are fully satisfied if their hearers

understand what is said. Sometimes such understanding is the sole objective of an

entire speech; then we tend to think of the talk as wholly informative.

There are some standard peculiar things which can be categorized into

informative speaking; (a) Accuracy, in the sense of being true to fact in both detail

and proportion; (b) Completeness, in the sense of being comprehensive enough to

9 Henry Guntur Tarigan, Berbicara Sebagai Suatu Keterampilan Berbahasa, (Bandung,

Angkasa, 1985), p.16
10 J. F. Wilson and Carroll. C. Arnold, Public Speaking as a Liberal Art, (Allyn and Bacon,
Inc, Boston 1965).
 9

cover the subject promised in the specific purpose of the speech or in any

subsection of the speech; and (c) Unity, in the sense of providing knowledge that

will be intelligible as a whole, not as a mere miscellany of items. Like many other

propositions about oral communication, these standards of good informative

speaking grow out of the demands of the audience. When a speaker indicates he

wants to make us understand, all of us, as listeners, begin analysing what he says

for its truth; for whether there is enough detail to permit understanding and to

justify accepting what is being offered; and for whether what we are told “adds

up” to any completed, significant whole.

b. Speaking to Induce Inquiry

A formal example of speaking to induce inquiry might be seen when a city

manager or other official outlines to a mass meeting the nature of his city’s water-

supply crisis and presents the alternatives from which the city must choose its

solution. In formal as well as informal setting speakers do address audiences

without pretending to have the answers. A fraternity member may observe that the

porch of the chapter house is deteriorating. If nothing is done about it he may feel

moved to introduce the problem at a business meeting. Not having the answers

himself, he may choose to discuss the problem and several possible ways of doing

the necessary repair work. Likewise, a speaker might be truly perplexed about

“What attitude should we take toward conscientious objectors?” and so, wish to

set off discussion of the topic. In such moments these speakers are not informants

in the usual sense, nor do they have the answer about which to persuade their

hearers. Their objective is to set out the conditions within which a solution must
 10

be found and to challenge those who listen to evaluate and select a desirable

solution. The challenge may be for private thought or for public discussion in the

open forums that often follow such speeches.

c. Speaking to Reinforce Beliefs and Feelings

From time to time we talk to others without intending to establish new

beliefs or reverse the directions in which our listeners’ feeling run. We often talk

simply to reinforce beliefs and feelings that already exist. We speak of the values

of education on a commencement day; we assure a friend that he is right in

asserting that Chris John is a better boxer than Eliaspikal; and so on. The aim of

such talk is to make the listener believe something more than ever or to feel more

strongly then ever that which he already feels in some degree. We seek to put our

hearers more completely under the dominion of their existing beliefs and feelings

than they were before we began to talk.

d. Speaking to Entertain

It is exceedingly important to notice that both definitions of entertain

imply that entertainment may be amusing but is not invariably so. We all

recognize that a first-rate travelogue can be entertaining and that although some

first-rate travelogues are humorous or have amusing undertones, others do not.

Likewise, many narratives and many descriptions entertain us; some do so

because they are amusing while others accomplish a like effect with very little use

of humor . The speaker who is asked to give “an entertaining speech’ should

recognize that is choosing his subject and central theme he may elect either a

humorous or a non-humorous subject and still hope to entertain.

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e. Speaking to Persuade

Justifying, as well as amplifying materials are essential in any attempt at

altering beliefs and feelings. Moreover, both must have motivational importance

for the audience. Ideally, this ought to be true of all content in all speeches; but it

is crucial in persuasion. It has been repeatedly indicated that listeners have to be

motivated to pay attention to what is said; but if hearers are to alter their

viewpoints or feelings, their personal interests must supply especially strong

justifications for change.

3. Kinds of Speaking Activity

Traditional classroom speaking practice often takes the form of drills in

which one person asks a question and another gives an answer. The question and

the answer are structured and predictable, and often there is only one correct,

predetermined answer. The purpose of asking and answering the question is to

demonstrate the ability to ask and answer the question.

In contrast, the purpose of real communication is to accomplish a task, such

as conveying a telephone message, obtaining information, or expressing an

opinion. In real communication, participants must manage uncertainty about what

the other person will say. Authentic communication involves an information gap;

each participant has information that the other does not have. In addition, to

achieve their purpose, participants may have to clarify their meaning or ask for

confirmation of their own understanding.

The speaking activity grows keeping pace with period development. The

high mobility of modern people demands more complexity of speaking purposes,

then, affects to speaking activity in providing those purposes.

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Weaver, Borchers, and Smith divided the common speaking activities in

some activities:11

a. Drama: Play readings, all-school plays, class plays, operettas, one –act

plays, play contests, and festivals.

b. Contest speaking and reading: Interscholastic contests in interpretation

of literature (declamation and reading), extemporaneous speaking,

oratorical declamation, and original oratory.

c. Debate: Intramural and interscholastic competition in debating

propositions selected by state or national debating associations.

d. Discussion: School and inter-school forums; interscholastic discussion

contests.

e. Speech clubs: Drama clubs, debate clubs, radio workshops, and the

like. Such clubs may support or extend school and interscholastic work

in particular types of speaking, may be social groups formed by

students with common interests, or, as in the case of radio workshops,

may foster a student interest group around a “newer” center of student

interest and activity.

f. Community speaking enterprises: (a) Speaker’s bureaus organized to

get student speakers before adult groups in the community or before

student audiences in other schools, and (b) school radio programs,

filling regularly allotted time on local radio stations.

g. Other student activities of which speech training is a concomitant

11 Op cit. p. 61
 13

aspect: School assembly programs, student councils, class groups, and

the like, are organized for purposes other than the giving of speech

training. However, the value of such activities to the speech

development of certain students in such skills as public speaking,

parliamentary procedure, discussion leadership, and the like, is

apparent and is often noted as one of the educational values of these

activities.

4. Elements of Speaking

It has to be realized that good English speaking ability is influenced by

mastering the speaking elements. Speaking elements are crucial things which

could not be separated each other, they are unity. A good speaking ability could

not be reached if one of these elements is weak or poor. In this case, the writer

took these elements in three items, phonetics, semantics and syntax.

a. Phonetics

As we start out, it will be useful to ask ourselves where we are going, and

with what purpose. Our daily practical routine depends on oral communication.

All day long we make noises and listen to noises, and these noises help in getting

the day’s work done. If we’ve always spoken English, we don’t pay much

attention to it, but take it for granted. There are times, however, when it’s useful to

analyze the language and see how it works. Although most of us think we know

English, because we use it more or less efficiently, few of us know it

scientifically. Many of us fall into the booby traps of English spelling. Some of us

run into conflicting opinions about what is good pronunciation and what is bad,

and have no way of settling the conflict. Since our understanding of English is
 14

likely to be loaded with misconceptions.

C. K. Thomas in his book stated, phonetics is the study of oral sound used

in communication.12

In phonetics, a distinctive sound is one which may distinguish one word

from another, as the final sound of cat distinguishes it from cap, and the medial

sound from cut. A non-distinctive sound, or sound change, is one that does not

alter the meaning of the word. In cat, for instance, we have all heard non-

distinctive variations in the quality or length of the medial sound, the vowel. We

recognized the reference to the small animal, even though the pronunciation, by

our standards, seemed a bit quaint.

Phonetics (from the Greek: phōnē, "sound, voice") is a branch of

linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned

with the physical properties of speech sounds (phones), and the processes of their

physiological production, auditory reception, and neurophysiological perception.

Phonetics was studied as early as 2500 years ago in ancient India, with

Panini's account of the place and manner of articulation of consonants in his 5th

century BC treatise on Sanskrit. The major Indic alphabets today order their

consonants according to Panini's classification.13

Muhammad Farkhan explained also that phonetics is the study of sounds

which is concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (phones) as well

as those of non-speech sounds, and their production, audition and perception, as

opposed to phonology, which operates at the level of sound systems and abstract

12 Charles Kenneth Thomas, An Introduction to the Phonetics of American English, Second

Edition, The Ronald Press Company, New York 1958, p. 4
13 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonetics
 15

sound units (such as phonemes and distinctive features). 14 Phonetics deals with

the sounds themselves rather than the contexts in which they are used in

languages; while phonology describes the way sounds function within a given

language or across languages.

There are three types of the study of the sounds of language: articulatory,

acoustic, and auditory phonetics.15

• Articulatory phonetics, concerned with the positions and

movements of the lips, tongue, vocal tract and folds and other

speech organs in producing speech. In studying articulation, the

phonetician is attempting to document how we produce speech

sounds. That is, articulatory phoneticians are interested in how the

different structures of the vocal tract, called the articulators

(tongue, lips, jaw, palate, teeth etc.) interact to create the specific

sounds. This will be discussed briefly in this chapter.

• Acoustics phonetics, concerned with the properties of the sound

waves and how they are received by the inner ear. Acoustic

phonetics Investigates properties like the mean squared amplitude

of a waveform, its duration, its fundamental frequency, or other

properties of its frequency spectrum, and the relationship of these

properties to other branches of phonetics (e.g. articulatory or

auditory phonetics), and to abstract linguistic concepts like phones,

phrases, or utterances.

14 Muhammad Farkhan, An Introduction to Linguistics, UIN Jakarta Press, Jakarta 2006, p.

27
15 Ibid. p. 28
 16

• Auditory phonetics, concerned with speech perception, principally

how the brain forms perceptual representations of the input it

receives. Sound is perceived through the sense of hearing. Humans

and many animals use their ears to hear sound, but loud sound and

low frequency sounds can be perceived by other parts of the body

through the sense of touch.

Daniel Jones stated the student of spoken English or any other spoken

language is faced at the outset with difficulties of five kinds in the matter of

pronunciation. They are as follows:16

• The students must learn to recognize readily and with certainly the

various speech-sounds occurring in the language, when they hear

somebody else pronounced; they must moreover learn to remember

the acoustic qualities of those sound.

• They must learn to make the foreign sounds with their own organs

of speech.

• They must learn to use those sounds in their proper places in

connected speech.

• They must learn the proper usage in the matter of the ‘sound-

attributes’ or ‘prosodies’ as they are often called (especially length,

stress and voice-pitch).

• They must learn to catenate sounds, i.e. to join each sound of a

sequence on to the next, and to pronounce the complete sequence

16 Daniel Jones, An Outline of English Phonetics (Revised Edition), ……..,p. 2

 17

rapidly and without stumbling.

The ultimate object of the language learner is to be able to pronounce

properly without having to pay any particular attention to the way in which they

does it. To attain this end they must in the initial stages of their study focus their

attention continually on the above-mentioned details of the mechanism of speech.

After long practice they will gradually acquire the power of pronouncing correctly

without thinking of these details.

Ability to speak a language or understand it when spoken does not involve

the ability to read or write it in the conventional way. One may learn to speak

English perfectly without ever seeing ordinary English orthography. And

conversely it is possible to learn to read and write the language without being able

to pronounce it.

b. Semantic

Most learners begin their second language acquisition process with a "silent

period", in which they speak very little if at all. For some this is a period of

language shock, in which the learner actively rejects the incomprehensible input

of the new language. However, research has shown that many "silent" learners are

engaging in private speech (sometimes called "self-talk"). While appearing silent,

they are rehearsing important survival phrases and lexical chunks. These

memorized phrases are then employed in the subsequent period of formulaic

speech. Whether by choice or compulsion, other learners have no silent period and

pass directly to formulaic speech. This speech, in which a handful of routines are

used to accomplish basic purposes, often shows few departures from L2

morphosyntax. It eventually gives way to a more experimental phase of

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acquisition, in which the semantics and grammar of the target language are

simplified and the learners begin to construct a true inter-language.

Semantics is the study of meaning. The word "semantics" itself denotes a

range of ideas, from the popular to the highly technical. It is often used in ordinary

language to denote a problem of understanding that comes down to word selection

or connotation. This problem of understanding has been the subject of many

formal inquiries, over a long period of time.

The formal study of semantics has many subfields, including proxemics,

lexicology, syntax pragmatics, etymology and others, although semantics in and

of itself is a well-defined field in its own right, often with synthetic properties.17 In

Philosophy of language, semantics and reference are related fields. Further related

fields include philology, communication, and semiotics. The formal study of

semantics is therefore complex.

As a result, those who study meaning differ on what constitutes meaning.

For example, in the sentence, "John loves a bagel", the word bagel may refer to

the object itself, which is its literal meaning or denotation, but it may also refer to

many other figurative associations, such as how it meets John's hunger, etc.,

which may be its connotation. Traditionally, the formal semantic view restricts

semantics to its literal meaning, and relegates all figurative associations to

pragmatics, but many find this distinction difficult to defend. 18 The degree to

which a theorist subscribes to the literal-figurative distinction decreases as one

moves from the formal semantic, semiotic, pragmatic, to the cognitive semantic

17 Cruise, Alan. Meaning and Language: An introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics,

chapter one, Oxford Textbooks in Linguistics, 2004
18 Kearns, Karen. Semantics, Palgrave MacMillan 2000; Cruise, D.A. Lexical Semantics.
Cambridge, 1986
 19

traditions.

Muhammad Farkhan explained that semantic is branch linguistics devoted

to the study of meaning, especially the meaning of words, phrases, sentences and

text. It is concerned with describing how the user of a language represents the

meaning of a word, or linguistic forms above or below a word in his mind and

how he uses this representation tin constructing sentence. Semantics which is

based largely on the study of logic in philosophy is commonly contrasted with

syntax, which pertains to the formal arrangement of characters and words in the

expressions of a given language.

c. Syntax

That almost all language networks are small-world and scale-free raises the

question of whether syntax plays a role to measure the complexity of a language

networks. To answer this question, it built up two random language (dependency)

networks based on a dependency syntactic network and investigated the

complexity of these three language networks to see if the non-syntactic ones have

network indicators similar to the syntactic one. The result show that all the three

networks are small-world and scale-free. While syntax influences the indicators of

a complex network, scale-free is only a necessary but not sufficient condition to

judge whether a network is syntactic or non-syntactic. The network analysis

focuses on the global organization of a language; it may not reflect the subtle

syntactic differences of the sentence structure.

Lexically, syntax originates from the Greek words “syn” meaning “co-“ or

“together, and “taxis”, meaning “sequence order and arrangement”.

Terminologically, syntax can be defined as the study of the rules, or “patterned

 20

relations” that govern the way the words in a sentence come together.19 Simply, it

concerns with how different words that are categorized as nouns, adjectives,

verbs, etc. are combined into phrases, clauses, which in turn, are combined into

sentences. Consider the following examples.

Example 1

Words: reads girl novel the her in room new a

Phrases: the girl + reads a new novel + in her room

Clauses: the girl reads a new novel in her room

Sentences the girl reds a new novel in her room

Example 2

Words: delivering senate president is his before the speech the

Phrase: the president + is delivering + his speech + before the senate

Clauses: the president is delivering his speech before the senate

Sentence: the president is delivering his speech before the senate

Syntax attempts to systematize descriptive grammar, and is unconcerned

with perspective grammar. To accommodate various school of linguistics

discussing syntax, the study is differentiated into two categories, traditional and

modern perspective.

B. Factor Affecting Speaking Practice

Self Confident

Self-confident is about how you see yourself. How people perceive you

will affect your own self image and will affect how they relate to you. It will
19 http://www.wikipedia.org/org/wiki/syntax-grammar-2006; accessed on July 23rd 2009
 21

affect your relationship either positively or negatively. And, your view about

yourself shaped your unique thoughts and belief. You will see yourself in positive

and negative ways and both will be biased. Then, your view will influence your

self-confident because our general belief about ourselves can have a powerful

effect upon our self confidence across many situations.

To know whether the self confident of learners has relationship with their

English speaking ability or not, the writer would like to explain the concept as

follows:

Self confident theory firstly comes from Carl Rogers’ theory about self. He

introduced an entire system of helping built around the important of the self. The

entire theory is built on a single “force of life”. He calls the ‘actualizing

tendency’. It can be defined as the built in motivation present in every life form to

develop its potential to the fullest extent possible.20

In Rogers’ view, the self is a social product, developing out of

interpersonal relationships and striving for consistency. He maintained that there

is a basic human need for positive regard both from others and from oneself. He

also believed that in every person there is a tendency towards self-actualization

and development so long as this is permitted and encouraged by an inviting

environment.21

So, Rogers in Pesticelli defines self confident as the organized concept that

composed of perceptions of the characteristics of ‘I’ or ‘me’ and the perception of

the relationships of the ‘I’ or ‘me’ to others and to various aspects of life, together

20 Purkey, W. (1988). An overview of self-concept theory for counselors. ERIC Clearinghouse on

Counseling and Personnel Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. (An ERIC/CAPS Digest: ED304630) in
`www.ericdigest.org./pre_9211/self.htm accessed on June, 2008.
21 Purkey W……, p. 89
 22

with the values attached to these perceptions. In other words, one’s self confident

influences the way of how one regards both oneself and one’s environment. 22

According to him, a strong self confident is flexible and allows a person to

confront new experiences and ideas without feeling threatened.

Besides Rogers, there are many definitions of self confident from other

psycholinguists. The writer will present a few to know more about the meaning of

self confident. Hubber and Runyon in Bintang Bangsaku state that self confident

is an internal perception of one’s competencies, virtues, and feeling value. 23

Murphy in Bintang Bangsaku defines it as the individual as known to the

individual.24 According to Symonds in Bintang Bangsaku it is the way or manner

in which the individual react to himself. 25 He spells out four aspect of self: how a

person perceives himself; what he thinks of himself; how he values himself; and

how he attempts through various action to enhance or defend himself.

In addition, Purkey defines self confident is the totality of a complex,

organized, and dynamic system of learned beliefs, attitudes, and opinions that

each person holds to be true about his/her personal existence.26 Marsh in Burnet

states that self confident is a person’s perceptions regarding him/her; these

perceptions are formed through experience with and interpretations of one’s

environment. They are especially influenced by evaluations by significant others,

reinforcements and attributions for one’s own behavior.27

22 Pescitelli, Dagmar. 1998. An Analysis of Carl Rogers' Theory of Personality.

http://www.nidus.org, accessed on march, 23rd 2008
23 Bintang Bangsaku….., p. 68
24 Bintang Bangsaku ….., p. 69
25 Bintang Bangsaku,….. p. 70
26 Bintang Bangsaku,….. p. 70
27 Burnet, Paul C., Craven, Rhonda G., Marsh, Herbet W.1999. Enhanching Students’ Self-
Concept and Related Constructs: The need for a critical longitudinal analysis capitalizing on and
combining promising enhancement techniques for educational setting.www.aare.edu.au, accessed
on June, 21st 2008
 23

Furthermore, Bracken in Bintang Bangsaku mentions that self confident is

a context that depends on learned behavioral patterns that reflect an individual’s

evaluation of past behavior and experiences, influence an individual’s current

behavior, and predict the individual’s future behaviors.28 Furhman in Bintang

Bangsaku states that self confident is all about one’s perception and assessment

about one’s self through physic, sex, cognitive, behavior, competence,

performance, motivation, and emotion.29

Other definition about self confident is from Cooley in Bintang Bangsaku

he defines self confident as a concept is formed from learning process about norm,

attitude, role, and identity in the interaction process with society. 30 Stuart and

Sudeen in Salbiah state that self confident is all ideas, thinking, and belief is

known by someone about his/herself and influence one in interaction process.31

In this study, self confident is what someone understands about his/herself

that develops through experience, education, socialization and interaction process

as long as human life. It is about how a person perceives himself; how a person

regards himself; what he thinks of himself; how he values himself; and how he

attempts through various actions to enhance or defend himself.

Aspects or Sub Scale of Self Confident

According to Brook Bintang Bangsaku stated that the aspect of self

confident is divided into three. They are as follows:

28 Bintang Bangsaku…..,p. 71
29 Bintang Bangsaku…..,p. 72
30 Bintang Bangsaku…..,p. 73
31 Salbiah, SKp. 2003. Konsep Diri. www.usu.ac.id.com (Accessed on June, 2008)
 24

a. Academic Self Confident

It is related to individual’s perception about his capability, achievement,

and self confidence in academic life. And the students’ perception itself is

influenced by others’ perception toward him especially teachers and classmates. If

the teacher believes to the students’ capability, the students also trust with their

capability. Then, they may feel others accept themselves. Unconsciously, there is

a high motivation and desire inside the students’ self to get a good achievement.

In addition, Jones and Grieneeks (Pudjijogyanti: 1991) say that self confident is

the best non-intellectual factor to determine students’ achievement. Many

observations showed that individual perception about his capability will influence

his motivation to get a good achievement. In brief, it shows that the importance of

self confidence, self regard, and self acceptance in determining the successfulness.

b. Social Self Confident

It is related to one’s social role, his perception toward its role, and the

ability to make relationship with others people. This aspect focuses on one’s role

as a social person in the family and society and how the family and environment

treat someone and influence one’s self confident.

c. Personal Self Confident

It is related to individual’s perception about his property like physical

appearances, the way of thinking, and feeling value toward himself which relates

to one’s characteristic or trait personality like attitude, value, and belief such as

self confidence, honesty, and trustworthy.

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Level of Self Confident

Mostly, self confident is divided into two levels.32 They are high self

confident and low self confident. Furthermore, it is divided into three levels. They

are high, fair and low. High self confident is the condition when you are sure

about yourself, appreciate your self, trust to your potential, feel accepted, make

friend easily, and another happy feeling that make you confident and deserve to

have a better life. Fair self confident is the condition when you have a fairly self

confident. You feel accepted, praised and other happy feelings that make you be

confidence, but in another situation, the feeling can be change of the opposite.

Although he or she has high self confident, but it is not high enough to be called

high concept, because there is still another room to be improved to have high self

confident. Low self confident is the condition of your feeling when you have a

poor self image caused by your experiences during childhood, and that feeling

cannot go through when you are growing up. You feel lonely, depressed, having

social anxiety and alienation even in crowd situation.

Coopersmith33 states that the characteristic of people who have high self

confident are free to give opinion, have high motivation to reach aim, can

actualize self potential, and have ability to adapt with environment. In addition,

Brook and Emmert34 mention that high self confident is signed by trusting one’s

competence to solve problem, having equal role with others, accepting praise,

being aware that not all people are accepted certainly by society and always

improving his/her personality.

32 Bintang Bangsaku, ….. p. 76

33 Bintang Bangsaku, ….. p. 78
34 Bintang Bangsaku, ….. p. 79
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John Robert Power 35 states that people have high self confident when they

know themselves deeply both strength and weakness, accept all their self potential

and feel confidence to develop it optimally, and have a strong motivation to learn

and become a success person.

In this study, if the learners have high self confident on English speaking,

they will speak English confidently and fluently. Because by having high self

confident, students will have strong motivation to learn and to develop their

competence in speaking and be active in English speaking class. They are also

brave to take risks of making mistakes and make decision about what to say and

how to express their ideas in English. Briefly, the learners who have high self

confident will regard themselves and can reach the aim easily.

Fair self confident almost has the same characters with high self confident.

But, it is unstable. A person with fair self confident is easy distracted by the

condition and situation. And it is easy to make them feel inferior or not confidence

when they are in unusual condition and do something difficult or they never done

before. Sometimes they are unable to overcome the unusual situation, but

sometimes not.

Low self confident is signed by having no knowledge about self, lack

confidence, afraid to make mistakes and to try a new thing, afraid to refusal, lazy

to learn, easy feeling failure, always blaming situation and others, sensitive to

others’ criticism, hypercriticize, responsive to others’ praise, and pessimistic.

Coopersmith36 states that low self confident is characterized by insecure feeling

and lack self acceptance. Furthermore, Fitts37 mention that people have low self

35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
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confident when they do not regard themselves, have no self image yet, have

difficulty to define their own self, easy to be influenced with environment, and

feel strange in his/her own environment because of their bad experiences.

By having low self confident, learners are hampered to speak English well.

Because they tend to be inactive, ashamed to express their idea, afraid to make

mistakes and do not know what and how should they express their idea in

English? If the learner keeps this low level of self confident during he or she

learns to speak English, the writer thinks that it will take a long time for them to

be success in English speaking. Here is needed the teacher or instructor’s role in

improving their self confident on English speaking ability because it is not always

so easy to recognize whether the learners have low self confident or not.

There are some consequences of having low self confident that can devastate. It

can create anxiety, loneliness, and increase the likelihood for depression. It can

cause problems with friendship and relationship, can impair academic and job

performance seriously, can lead to under achievement and increase vulnerability

to drug and alcohol abuse. These negative consequences can take a person into a

downward spiral of lower self confident and increasingly non productive or even

actively self destructive behavior.38

Self Confident Development

Self confident is not innate and heredity. It develops by continuing self

38 Fitriana, Rinda. 2006. The Self-Esteem in English Speaking Ability by the Learners of
Lembaga Pendidikan Indonesia Amerika (LPIA)’s Conversation ! class in Academic Year
2005/2006). Unpublished Thesis. Samarinda: College of English Education of Mulawarman
University. P. 98
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learning process. Burns39 states that self confident always develop as long as

human life. Furthermore Cooley40 mentions that self confident is formed through

learning process.

Self confident develops throughout our lives as we build a self image

through our experiences with different people and activities. Experiences during

childhood play role in shaping our basic self confident. The way we are treated by

families, teachers, friends, and society, and the way we face our success and

failure when we are growing up, give a contribution to create our self confident.

As Hurlock states that the development process of self confident started from

when human was born, continue until his/her age is 6-8 months old, and when

his/her age is 3-5 years old, the person starts to identify him/her self about age,

body size, sex, and other.41 In this face which Allport 42

called as early self face,

someone also tries to give simple respond to others.

The process is more complicated in schooling age. It is because of

socialization, and interaction process with others. And the most complex face is

adolescent. Hurlock mentions that adolescent face is the important face to find out

and set up one’s self confident. If someone receives positive perception or regards

from others, he/she may regard his/her self highly which also can shape his/her

positive self confident.43

In brief, self confident is formed from learning process through feedback

from others and environment, experience (both childhood and growing up),

education, interaction and socialization process.

39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.
41 Hurlock, B. Elizabeth. 1980. Psikologi Perkembangan. Jakarta: Erlangga. P. 56
42 Ibid.
43 Hurlock B. Elizabeth….. p. 77
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C. Thinking Framework

As discussed before, self-confident has the urgent role in speaking activity.

A good speaking activity is supported by good self-confident. To have speaking

activity, students are needed to avoid afraid to make mistakes and do not know

what and how should they express their idea in English, and ashamed to express

their idea. Because, to communicate in English needs confident that is reflected

through general self confident.

In addition, in acquiring second language, learner is affected by some

variables including motivation, self confidence, and anxiety. With high

motivation, self confidence, a good self image, and a low level of anxiety,

students will be better for success in second language acquisition. Furthermore,

low motivation which relate to the low self confident and debilitating anxiety, can

form a mental block that prevents comprehensible input for language acquisition.

It means that when the students has low self-confident, any efforts to acquire

second language as well will be disturbed, and she/he might failed to acquire

English as second language. As the writer explained above, low self confident

may affect their self confidence and motivation to learn. So, high self confidence

is needed to present our English in communication (speaking activity).