The Problem of Teaching English in The

Classroom
Anisa Prastya Ningrum, Budi Kadaryanto

English Education Study Program

Faculty of Teacher Training and Education
Email: Annisaprastya205@gmail.com

Abstract: This research aimed to investigate the problem in teaching and learning
English that teacher always encouter in every situation, the teacher’s struggle,
prespective, motivation, experiences. The problem in English teaching and learning also
come from the students that think english is a difficult language, lack of motivation, lack
of vocabulary, and lack of students’ interest to learn English as a skill. The research
conducted using qualitative method, and this research intended to explore the problems
encounter by teacher in teaching and learning english in the classroom. Furthermore, we
investigate the teacher’s struggle, students’ motivation, and the suitable media for
learning english, and how teachers’ attempts to solve the problem.

Keywords: problem in teaching, qualitative, motivation, media, students.

I. Introduction
Teaching English becomes a crucial issue when it is taught as a
foreign language. Teaching English as a foreign language is a demanding
task when it comes to the places where English serves limited exposure
(Khan, 2001). Brown (2001), states that teaching English as a foreign
language is always challenging. There are always imperfect institutions,
imperfect people, and imperfect circumstances which are called “adverse
circumstances” to deal with. Teaching English in Indonesia have several
consideration regarding to the efforts, methods, and curriculum. As a
foreign Language, English being a part of a subject that always considered
time by time to improve the results. Lie (2007), also argues that “the
maintenance of English as a foreign language has been steady as it is
officially taught throughout the secondary schools”. Teacher always
trying to use easy methods to teach their students but still can not cover all
of the problem regarding teaching english. Buyukyavuz and Inal (2008) in
 identifying problems in foreign language involved 132 in-service teachers
found that there were lots of crowded classes in state schools filled with
students with different language levels, learners were not guided to take
responsibility for their own learning outside the classroom, language
exams were designed on multiple choice format instead of projects and
portfolios, the majority of teachers professional development was nothing
more than studying grammar and preparing for language proficiency
examination for state employees, and the traditional classroom seating
setting prevented from effective teaching in classes.
Teacher should consider their instructional style and the sudent’s
learning style should match. It is important so the teacher should be aware
of their learning style preferences of the students and acordingly adjust
their own teaching methods (Claxton&Murrell, 1987). Moreover, learning
english in the school always demanding the students to mastering four
skills such as listening, speaking, writing, and reading. Thus sometimes
students always get difficulity to learn english. The aim of this assignment
is to find out the problems of Teaching and Learning English. Learning
english is something very essential in this era because if we have english
skill, sometimes people can be easier to get a job. English being a part of
several job requirement, and put it as a plus point. Learning and Teaching
english is not easy as we expected because not only learning about
grammar but also the skills. Brown (2000) state that study, experience, and
instruction can be a way to getting knowledge in English learning process.
Learning english not only about easy aspects but also challenge that
students should face.
Literature Review
Based on the previous research, challenge in teaching or learning english
is students do not have any capability to express themselves to use english as
a foreign language even though they have been study english since they were
in primary school. In another word, they can not build a communication in
English. The problem that might be a reason why student always get failures
are students theirselves, teachers, materials, teaching method or it can be said
as education system problem and another probloem are subcomponents such
as curriculum and policy (Akbari Zahra, 2015)
II. Method
2.1 Design
The data was gathered by interviewing five English Teachers. The
interview has become a means of contemporary storytelling where persons
divulge life accounts in response to interview inquiries (Gubrium&Holstein,
1998). I use qualitative method for this case study. Shank (2002) defines
qualitative research as a form of systematic empirical inquiry into meaning.
By systematic he means “planned, ordered and public”, following rules
agreed upon by members of the qualitative research community. By
empirical, he means that this type of inquiry is grounded in the world of
experience. Inquiry into meaning says researchers try to understand how
others make sense of their experience. In order to gather information, I
reached them through WhatsApp chat and Direct Message on Twitter. I asked
some questions and they answer it completely and obviously then after that
the data can be analyzed to find the result of this case study.
a. Participants
a. Sekar Melati
b. Anisa Widya Pangesti
c. Wulandari
d. Yunita Nur Evendi
e. Faiz Fauzan
2.3 Data Collection
Interview
1. Question: How long have you been teaching English?
Answer:
a. Person 1 : 6 months
b. Person 2: 3 months
c. Person 3: 2 months
d. Person 4: 4 months
e. Person 5: 2 years
2. Question: What kind of problems that you often encounter in
teaching English?
Answer:
a. Person 1: I have so much problem of Teaching and Learning
English, such as difficulties in teaching elementary school
students because some of them have English subject and others
do not and it was very difficult if they placed in the same class.
Then it so challenging when I teach for UTBK preparation
because most of them just learned basic english at school then for
utbk the question is HOTS, so I am trying to cover all of
materials, both for utbk and improve the basic skills. Most of
students lack of english so that is difficult. And the students
assume that learning english is a difficult, so the students feel
lazy.
b. Person 2: My big problem placed on the class management. As an
elementary school’s teacher, I always trying to stimulate my
students with the material that the students can accepted and
understand it easily.
c. Person 3: Lack of student’s motivation. So they always feel lazy
when learning English.
d. Person 4: Lack of vocabulary
e. Person 5: Students who do not have motivation to study and the
gap of the knowledge from each student.

3. Question: How to solve kind of problems that are encounter in

teaching English?
Answer:
a. Person 1: By giving them material that easy to understand. For
UTBK preparation, give them some excercises to build their
mind, and giving them the interesting material, so the students
will be happy during the study.
 b. Person 2: Trying to conduct the class when they starting make
some noisy and give them some Ice breaking to make them
focuse and learning process will run effectively.
c. Person 3: Using more interesting media. By using interesting
media, students will remember that learning english is something
fun and it motivated them to learn english.
d. Person 4: Lack of vocabulary can be overcome by doing
translation word by word, because if they do not do it, students
tend to capture the paragraph and using some translator apps,
without trying to know the meaning of each words.
e. Person 5: I am trying to use various learning media and built so
much classroom activities to create a dynamic class.

4. Question: What are the sturggles in teaching English?

Answer:
a. Person 1: Students have mindset that english is something
difficult so that’s not easy to change their mindset, and the
difficulities how to conduct the class, especially low grade class.
It must be wasting energy and my patience.
b. Person 2: As a primary school teacher, my biggest problem is on
the class’s management. The primary school students, especially
the first grade, really need stimulation for them to be a good
listener, so the material I gave to them could be accepted and the
most essential thing is they can understand the material and
applied it on their daily life as a student.
c. Person 3: During the teaching process there are students who are
less enthusiastic and how do we build an interesting learning
atmosphere.
d. Person 4: Students' interest in learning English is bare minimum
so as a teacher, like it or not, even though they have taught at the
high school level, they still provide basic material so the children
can continue to participate in learning activities easily, especially
 after they go through online mode learning which when I asked
the students, they never bothered to think about doing
assignments because the answer already provided on internet.
e. Person 5: As I mentioned, I have struggle on the gap of the
student’s knowledge.

5. Question: How to deal with students who are less interested in

learning English?
Answer:
a. Person 1:Build an interesting and make learning fun by playing
flashcard, and give students reward after they did something.
b. Person 2: Giving them stimulation such as trying to speaking with
english, palying a game and setting the computer in english, so
the student can understand easily about every single part of
computer. Do not forget to give a reward, so it can motivated
students to learn english.
c. Person 3: Using interesting media.
d. Person 4: One of the reason why students feel so lazy or lost
interest because they dont have good skills One of the reasons
why students are lazy or loost interested in learning English is
because they feel they can't speak English and increase they feel
they can't, increasing the gap between the material being taught at
the same time as their understanding so that the most appropriate
way to solve the problem according to I (for students at my
school, it may be different from students in other schools) by
means of translating activities. Even though students do this
activity in groups, they still have to share the results of their work
in their respective books so that there must be some words that
stick in their memories.
e. Person 5: Basically, student who less of motivation is doesnt have
goals. Then as a teacher we supossed to help them build their
motivation to learning english.
6. Question: In your perspective, is it better to teach classes online or
fline Please explain briefly!
Answer:
a. Person 1: Offline, so the teacher can built a chemistry and with
the students.
b. Person 2: Offline, because you can meet children directly and can
provide solutions if there are learning problems.
c. Person 3: I prefer to teach offline class, because we can bonded
teacher and students relation. In addition, the material will
optimally delivered if we have offline class.
d. Person 4: I prefer to teach offline, because I teach at a private
school where student less of enthusiasm, even in materials that
use Indonesian, not in English. As I mentioned before, if we study
by online class, students will only take pictures of their work and
search ed it from the internet. And they really did it. So that the
most suitable method for learning English is face-to-face.
e. Person 5: Better to teach offline class so we can use various
media, applied various activities, and we can guide the student
directly.
7. Question: How to attract children's interest in learning English?
Answer:
a. Person 1: Make an interesting learning by doing a game, so the
students can avoide from bored atmosphere.
b. Person 2: Give them appreciation during the class.
c. Person 3: I’m trying to make the atmosphere more interesting dan
fun. The teacher supposed to more creative when using learning
media, and how the learing method goes.
d. Person 4: Applying non-monotonous learning, for example in the
introduction before starting the core learning activities, the teacher
provides media/games that can make children interested. For
example, chain of words, simple puzzles, or with videos related to
the material to be delivered.
 e. Person 5: Using a lot of learning media and enriching classroom
activities to create a dynamic classroom situation.

8. Question: From your prespective, what kind of media are suitable for
learning English? Please explain the reason! (e.g. video, audio)
Answer:
a. Person 1: Flash cards So students can actively learn and play so
that students are not passive, just pay attention.
b. Person 2: intersting media such as pictures because student put
their interest on visual media.
c. Person 3: The selection of learning media depends on the type of
skills to be taught. but usually students like audio-visual media,
such as video.
d. Person 4: The most suitable media in my opinion is to use a flash
card. I've tried using video and audio and only a few kids want to
watch the video/listen to the audio I've provided. Some of the
other children would only ask their friends about the content of
the video and when they were advised to listen to my video/audio,
they would pretend to be listening and would secretly ask their
friends. Audio/video can be used only at the beginning of the
lesson before entering the core learning.
e. Person 5: The most suitable media in my opinion is to use a flash
card. I've tried using video and audio and only a few kids want to
watch the video/listen to the audio I've provided. Some of the
other children would only ask their friends about the content of
the video and when they were advised to listen to my video/audio,
they would pretend to be listening and would secretly ask their
friends. Audio/video can be used only at the beginning of the
lesson before entering the core learning.
9. Question: What kind of motivation do you always keep in yourself
when you are teaching English?
Answer:
 a. Person 1: Student should get knowledge from what they have
learn in the class.
b. Person 2: It's your obligation to make students better, so be sure
u teach them carefully and there will be ways to make students
understand about the things u teach them. So, please be patient.
c. Person 3: I have to be a teacher that students will always
remember as a great teacher.
d. Person 4: It's your job. Do it with all of your heart and soul.
Let's make the students be excellent in English. Prove to the
people that look down on you, your students and your school
that you and they are more than able to use English, to master
English for at least for the daily conversation even though they
are a bit too late to learn the language and even they have very
low exposure to it. Fighting!!!!
e. Person 5: All of childrens I teach will definitely become someone
who is highly capable in the future, has good attitude, and
becomes an expert in their respective fields.
10. Question: Do you have any motivation and suggestion for English
teachers in the future?
Answer:
a. Person 1: Be a teacher as you wanted to be when you were in
school.
b. Person 2: Please look for so much experiences! Keep it up!
c. Person 3: Being a teacher should be more creative in the selection
of learning media. In addition, teachers should also be able to
understand the characteristics of students and what students need.
d. Person 4: In the future there are two possibilities:
1. Children will be more proficient in English because they have
had a little exposure to English (example: children whose parents
can speak English)
 2. Children will not be able to speak English at all because of the
mindset of their parents who previously did not understand
English.
Whatever the circumstances of the students you will face in class.
Remember: always identify your students' characteristics,
whether they can or not, find out the problems they have, then
look for the way that best fits their characteristics. It might be
different for each student but trust the process and you'll see the
wonderful results of your efforts.
e. Person 5: Never give up!

III. Result And Discussion

In the interview I asked regarding how long they have been teach and
I’ask regarding the problem that teachers often encounter in teaching
English. From the teachers they have different period how long they have
been teach english. Most of them can be said as a newbie of being a teacher
because their experiences in teaching around three untill four months. But I
never hesitate their capability to teach and give their best to be a teacher.
When I asked about the problems, surprisingly, the result of the interview
has similar answer from each teachers. The problem basically is from the
student itself. Miss Sekar melati state that the problem she encounter is she
have so much problem of Teaching and Learning English, such as
difficulties in teaching elementary school students because some of them
have English subject and others do not and it was very difficult if they
placed in the same class. Then it so challenging when she teach for UTBK
preparation because most of them just learned basic english at school then
for utbk the question is HOTS, so I am trying to cover all of materials, both
for utbk and improve the basic skills. Most of students lack of english so
that is difficult. And the students assume that learning english is a difficult,
so the students feel lazy.
Miss Anisa Widya Pangesti state that the difficulities she always
encounter is big problem placed on the class management. As an elementary
school’s teacher, she always trying to stimulate my students with the
material that the students can accepted and understand it easily. To solve the
problem, she is Trying to conduct the class when they starting make some
noisy and give them some Ice breaking to make them focuse and learning
process will run effectively. Wulan and Faiz Fauzan state that the problem
they often found is lack of motivation to learning English. Pourhosein
Gilakjani, Leong, and Saburi (2012), the success of any action is dependent
on the extent to which persons try to get their goal, along with their desire to
do so. The result of person’s attempting fot fulfing physicology, saafety,
esteem, social it called as motivation. When they want to attract their
student’s interest, they are sing more interesting media. Smaldino(2006),
argue when media is used for instructional purposes and utilized to canalize
teacherstudents communication, it categorized as instructional media.
By using media as well, teachers must consider which media is indeed
suitable for students so that their learning motivation can increase and their
penchant for learning English will increase. By using interesting media,
students will remember that learning english is something fun and it
motivated them to learn english. A good media is media which is suitable
for the topic, material, the students, and practical to use. In other words, a
good media doesn’t need to be expensive, it just needs to be reusable, and so
it can help the teacher to create an effective instruction in the classroom
(Mutohhar, 2009).
In addition to asking about problems, I also asked what are the challenges
in teaching English.On average, the problem faced by a teacher is the
motivation for student learning. Yorks (1976), defines Motivation as those
forces within an individual that push or propel him to satisfy basic needs or
wants. Students often lack motivation in learning English, so they are
always not interested and consider that English is a learning that is difficult
to understand. So in this stage the teacher tries to be able to build an
atmosphere and find a new atmosphere to learn English interestingly. By
using media that is favored by children, they will be more interested in
learning English.
 According to Bakri (2011:3) media is plural form of medium, which
derives from Latin word medius that has meaning “middle”. In Bahasa,
medium means “between or interval”. The meaning of media aimed at
something that delivers information (message) between message sender and
receiver. Moreover, in this modern era, there are many media that can be
used such as videos, flashcards, songs and trying to avoid monotonous
learning. They also said that an interesting media media is expected to be
able to develop their motivation and also their pleasure to learn English.
As a teacher, they also give a lot of messages to prospective English
teachers in the future. They say that we must be the teachers we wanted
when we went to school in the past, and also be teachers who have a lot of
experience so that they can be used as a reference for development. As a
teacher, we must also be able to understand the various characteristics of
students and what is needed. Everything does feel difficult and drains a lot
of energy. But if we enjoy the process, then all the things we go through will
feel good and please do not give up.

IV. Conclusion
The study case about the problem of learning and teaching english show
that being a teacher is not easy as we expected. I agree with their opinion, if
we want to be a teacher, we supposed to be ready to face unexpected things
during teaching activity. The teacher must also understand what are the
characteristics of each student and what they need.
Being a teacher not only about teaching the material, but also be a great
teacher that loved by the students. Beside that, mastering the material also
important, then as a teacher we know what should we teach to our students.

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