Reducing Students’ Anxiety in Speaking English: Teacher’s Strategies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.57176/jn.v4i1.128Keywords:
reducing anxiety, English learning, speaking skillAbstract
Kecemasan dalam berbicara bahasa Inggris dapat menghambat siswa dalam mempelajari bahasa tersebut. Menyadari masalah ini, guru bahasa Inggris harus memiliki strategi untuk membantu siswa mengatasi kecemasan berbicara. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui strategi guru dalam mengurangi kecemasan siswa dalam berbicara bahasa Inggris serta kelebihan dan kekurangan strategi yang diterapkan. Informan penelitian ini adalah seorang guru bahasa Inggris di sebuah SMP Islam di Surakarta, Jawa Tengah yang mengajar di kelas VIII. Desain penelitian ini adalah studi kasus. Teknik pengumpulan data meliputi observasi dan wawancara. Temuan penelitian menunjukkan bahwa strategi guru untuk mengurangi kecemasan siswa dalam berbicara bahasa Inggris adalah relaksasi, persiapan, berpikir positif, mencari teman sebaya, dan kelompok sebaya. Penerapan strategi tersebut memiliki dampak, baik kelebihan maupun kekurangan. Kelebihan dari strategi tersebut adalah: (1) menciptakan lingkungan belajar yang santai dan positif, (2) mengembangkan keterampilan komunikasi dan pembelajaran kolaboratif. Sementara itu, kelemahan dari strategi yang digunakan oleh guru adalah siswa sering menghabiskan waktu untuk membuat kelompok dan berisik. Temuan ini menyiratkan bahwa memilih strategi yang tepat untuk membantu siswa mengatasi kecemasan mereka dalam berbicara bahasa Inggris memerlukan beberapa pertimbangan, seperti kemampuan siswa, kebutuhan, serta keadaan kelas.
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Anxiety in speaking English can hinder students’ performance in learning the language. Recognizing this problem, English teachers should have strategies to help students cope with speaking anxiety. This current study focused on investigating teacher’s strategies to reduce students’ anxiety in speaking English as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the strategies applied by the English teacher of an Islamic junior high school in Surakarta, Central Java. Case study design was implemented in this research. The subject of this research is an English teacher who taught at the eight grades. The techniques in collecting the data included observation and interview. The research findings show that the teacher’s strategies to reduce students’ anxiety in speaking English are relaxation, preparation, positive thinking, peer seeking, and peer group. Implementing those strategies has impacts, either advantages or disadvantages. The advantages of those strategies are: (1) creating a relaxed and positive learning environment, (2) developing communication skill and collaborative learning. Meanwhile, the disadvantage of the strategies used by the teacher is students often take time in making groups and noisy. These findings imply that choosing the suitable strategies to help students cope with their anxiety in speaking English need some considerations, such as students’ abilities, needs, as well as classroom circumstances.
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