1

THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ ATTITUDE AND

MOTIVATION TOWARDS SPEAKING ABILITY

Hilmi Taufani
English Language Teaching Study Program
Postgraduate School, Universitas Islam Malang, Indonesia
Email: hilmitaufani44@gmail.com

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine the correlation between students’

attitude and motivation towards speaking ability. The population of this
study was students of MA Matholi’’ul Anwar Simo Lamongan, which were 58
students as the samples. The data was collected using a questionnaire
(adapted from Gardner and AMTB survey) asking and giving an opinion. Data
obtained by using SPSS linear regression to know the correlation between
students’ attitude and students’ motivation towards speaking ability. It was
quantitative research. The result of the statistical analysis shows that the
correlation between attitude and motivation simultaneously towards
speaking is calculated with the correlation coefficient is r = .607. It means
that there is a positive correlation between the variables of attitude and
motivation towards speaking. That way, if the variable attitude and
motivation are high, the speaking variable is high, whereas if the attitude and
motivation variables are low, the speaking variable is low. and the
correlation coefficient of the students’ attitude and their speaking ability was
r= .002. It means that there was a significant correlation between students’
attitude and their speaking ability. It can be concluded that a positive
attitude towards speaking leads to high achievement in speaking ability.

Keywords: Attitudes; Motivation; Speaking Ability

INTRODUCTION
Speaking is not like the other skills in the English language. Speaking is the important skills
because without mastering speaking skill people could not be regarded as mastering English.
Speaking is the most demanding skill for the students to acquire. In speaking, the students need
the confidence to express their opinion or interact with other people According to Ur (2009: 120)
“speaking includes all other kinds of knowing.” Furthermore, O’Malley and Pierce (1996) state that
speaking also means negotiating the intended meaning and adjusting one’s speech to produce the
desired effect on the listener. there have been several previous studies conducted in Indonesian
context related to the present study are the student's attitude and their speaking ability and the
students’ motivation and their speaking ability. The first one is a study conducted by Apriyani
(2015). It showed three results. Concerning attitude, there was no significant correlation between
attitude and students’ speaking ability. While there was a significant correlation between motivation
and students’ speaking ability. In terms of interest, there was no significant correlation between
interest and students’ speaking ability. The second study, conducted by Istianti (2013), found that
not all low motivated students in learning speaking had low speaking ability and highly motivated
students did not always have the good speaking ability. Therefore, it is similar to the explanation
before about attitude, thus the researchers also definitely need further investigation. Besides,
despite their interrelated relationship, it is important to know which variable is more significantly
correlated to speaking ability, attitude or motivation. There have been several studies related to
attitude and motivation.
The first study was conducted by Cortes (2002) in Puerto Rico-Spanish. This study used A
Spanish version of The Attitudes/Motivation Test Battery. These students came from various
regions in the island of Puerto Rico. The samples of this study were 2008 students. His study
revealed that anxiety refers to the students' apprehension or fear in the second-language class, or
setting where the language is used. Based on the literature, anxiety would not underlie or support
students' motivation to lead English as a second language. His study found that Puerto Rican
students had low to moderately favorable attitudes toward the English language or its speakers.
Thus, the findings of his study indicated the importance of motivation for achievement. He also
suggested further researchers conduct further research to understand the impacts of attitudes,
motivation, and anxiety factors on ESL achievement.
Mazban and Sadighi (2013) conducted a study in Iran. Their study utilized 65 freshmen
majoring in English translation, English literature, and electrical engineering at the University of
Isfahan. Three kinds of instruments were used oxford placement test (OPT) for homogenizing
students in terms of their English proficiency level; attitude/motivation test battery (AMTB) designed
by Gardner (1985) to measure students’ motivation and attitude toward learning English and a kind
of indirect interview with students in order to assess their speaking ability. The findings showed that
the student with a positive attitude had higher speaking scores than those with a negative one.
Besides, integrative-motivated students’ scores were higher than the instrumentally motivated one.
Moreover, gender did not make any differences among EFL learning as far as an attitude;
motivation and speaking ability were concerned. Based on the aforementioned research findings
the studies about attitude, motivation, and speaking ability were mostly conducted in non-
Indonesian context, there are few studies conducted in the Indonesian context. Moreover, Apriyani
(2015) conducted a study which focused on the relationship among attitude, motivation, interest
and students’ speaking ability at Islamic school, while the study conducted by Istianti (2013) only
focused on the relationship between motivation and students speaking ability at an Islamic school,
too. Therefore, in this study, the researcher researched a public school, MA Matholi’ul Anwar Simo
Lamongan, that was different from the previous research. The researcher wanted to fill the gap to
investigate “the correlation between attitude and motivation towards students’ speaking ability”,
particularly at a public school, MA Matholi’ul Anwar Simo Lamongan. There are two reasons why
senior high school level was chosen. First, in senior high school, English is a compulsory subject,
and one of the subjects in the national final exams (UAN and UAS). Thus, the students’ attitude and
motivation towards learning English may vary. Second, the students are considered mature enough
to identify their attitude and motivation to answer a questionnaire.

Related review

Attitude

Attitude towards a language can be either positive or negative (Youssef, 2012). In learning a
second language, a person with negative attitude learns for the sake to prevail over people in the
community while positive attitude of a person will strengthen the existing motivation in the language
learning. According to Youssef (2012), attitude is an important concept in language learning for one
to be successful. This is further supported by Young (2006) as cited in Yu (2010) who claimed that
learners with positive attitude in language learning will result in increasing input and better
interaction in second language. Another influential factor toward students’ speaking ability that
closely relates to motivation was the attitude. Okonkwo (2011) proposes an attitude as one
influential factor in learning speaking. He describes further that attitude could give support or
impede student speech development. Thus, it can be concluded that attitude has a significant role
in learning speaking whether it will be easy or difficult to do. Ajzen (1988) defines an idea that
attitude is the nature to react toward an object, person, institute on or event. Related to language
learning, Richard and Schmidt (2002:286) delineate language attitude as “the attitude which
speakers of different languages or language varieties have toward each other’s language or to their
language might also relate to what people feel about the speakers of that

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language.” Additionally, they clarify the possibility of language attitude’s effect of the second language on foreign
language learning. Attitude, as explained above, is considered as one of the factors that affect L2 learning.
Someone‘s success or failure in speaking could be judged based on their attitude. Moreover, Lightbown and
Spada (2001:56) claim “depending on the learners’ attitude as the second language could be a source of
enrichment or a source of resentment.” Therefore, learners’ attitude could be either the mood booster in learning
speaking. There are three variables of attitude: attitude in speaking English, attitude towards native speakers and
their cultures, and attitude of parents and society (Maio and Haddock, 2010). The attitude in speaking ability is the
students’ feelings about the English itself (feeling easy, difficult, and so on). The attitude towards native speakers
and their cultures is the students’ show what they think and want to be able to speak like native speakers.
Besides, the attitude of parents and society is the students’ attitude of their parents and their society. For instance,
the students get non-formal education at home can be in the form of support from their parents so that can make
the students get the extra zest.
Moreover, Azwar (2002) describes that attitude is established from several factors such as personal
experiences, the influence from others who are considered important, the influence of cultures, mass media,
educational institutions, religious institutions, and emotional factors. Each variable consists of three components:
component of attitude, namely cognitive, affective and behavior (Maio and Haddock, 2010). Firstly, the cognitive
component of attitude relates to someone’s attitude seen from the correlation between positive or negative traits
they already had with an object. Second, the affective component refers to mind-set or notions related to an
object. Someone’s mindset shapes their response to an objective attitude. Parents can obtain an important role to
make the children show a positive attitude to learn the English language, in this case, to speak English. Not only
at school can they learn English, but also they can get support from their parents at home to learn. English, for
instance, parents ask their children to follow the English course, etc. Therefore, those students can get additional
powers to learn and speak English. Furthermore, the last was someone’s experience whether it was good or not, it
was a trigger for their future attitude towards the speaking ability. Furthermore, Light brown and Spada (2016)
state that if learners need to speak the second language in a wide range of social situations or to fulfill
professionals’ ambitions, they will perceive the communicative value of the second language and therefore likely
to be motivated to acquire their proficiency. Similarly, if learners have favorable attitudes towards the speakers of
the language, they will desire more contact with them. So, when the learners want to speak the second language
(for their purposes), they can show a positive attitude to make what they need much easier to get. Asher and
Simpson (1994, p.254) as cited by Pamuji, A. (2018). defined attitude as a disposition or tendency to respond
positively or negatively toward certain things (idea, object, person, situation and so forth).
In summary, both negative and positive attitudes have a strong impact on the failure and success of
language learning. Moreover, some characteristics of attitude are: it is learned, it is not inherited, it is also likely to
be relatively stable, and it has a tendency to persist. In additional, Rokeach (1980, p.112) argues the several
characteristics of attitude, mainly; an attitude is relatively enduring, an attitude is situational, an attitude is an
organization of beliefs, and an attitude acts as an intervening variable. Scholl (2002, p.3) states attitude is
composed of four components, namely: cognition, affect, behavioral intentions, and evaluation. Cognitions are our
beliefs, theories, expectancies, cause and effect beliefs, and perceptions relative to the focal subject. Affective
refers to our feeling concerning the focal object such as fear, liking, or anger. Behavioral intentions are our goals,
aspirations, and expected responses to the attitude object. Evaluations are often considered the central
component of attitudes. Evaluations consist of the imputation of some degree of goodness or badness to an
attitude object. When we speak of a positive or negative attitude toward an object, we are referring to the
evaluative component. Evaluations are a function of cognitive, affective and behavioral intentions of the object. It
is most often the evaluation that is stored in memory, often without the corresponding cognitions and affect that
were responsible for its formation.

Motivation

Motivation is defined as the force that drives a person to strive and work hard to learn the language because
of the desire of learning and the satisfaction he will get in the learning process (Gardner, 1985) as cited in Zhang
(2001). Motivation also plays a crucial role to determine effective language learning as Gardner (2007) puts,
motivation in various aspects will make learners eager to learn second language. According to Yashima (2002),
willingness to communicate in second language comes from self- confidence which is affected by one’s
motivation. Brown (2000) highlighted that there are two basic types of motivation proposed by citing Gardner and
Lambert in 1972. In Hernandez, T. A. (2008). The two basic types of motivation are instrumental and integrative
motivation. According to Brown (2000), instrumental motivation refers to the desire of a person learning a
language for the sake of achieving instrumental goal in his life such as becoming a translator or furthering a career
while integrative motivation is being defined as a force that drives a person to learn a particular language for the
sake of integrating himself into the culture of the second language or becoming part of the social interchange
group. Self-determination plays an important role in second language learning which brings to the other two types
ofmotivation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Dornyei, 2003) as cited in Nazeera Ahmed Bazari and Faizah
Abdul Majid (2010). According to Dornyei (1998), a person who is intrinsically motivated is the one who learns a
second language because of the joy he has in himself and also to satisfy his curiosity which is the opposite of
extrinsic motivation in which a person who is eyeing for reward such as good grades or prizes and avoiding
punishment. In short, it can be said that intrinsic motivation brings to better and successful second language
learning.

Speaking

Speaking is an essential skill among other language skills that must be learned by English students. It is as
the major criterion to consider that the English students’ competence is good or lack. There are many definitions
of speaking from English experts. However, the writer only chooses several definitions which are important to talk
about. According to Joe McDonough and Christopher Shaw, “speaking is a desire and purpose-driven that may
involve expressing ideas and opinions; expressing a wish or a desire to do something; negotiation and or solving a
particular problem or establishing and maintaining social relationship and friendship”. Besides Lynne Cameron’s
definition, “speaking is the active use of language to express meanings so that peoples can make senses of
them”. From the definitions above, the writer concludes that speaking is a desire or a wish of a person to express
ideas, opinions, and feelings to others, to negotiate, to solve problems to make and to maintain interaction, social
relationship, and friendship. The essential thing in speaking is practicing the language because practices make us
perfect. This skill is used by everyone to communicate in daily life whether at school or outside school. It is can be
done by two or more people to communicate, to share information and to achieve particular goals. Scrivener
informs in his book, fluency and confidence are the important goals in the speaking class. From the statement
above, it means that speaking exercises students to have fluency and confidence to communicate with others.
Fluency is used to describe the ability to communicate an intended message. Fluency is expected to be accurate
to the listener easy to get the point of the message. The goal of teaching speaking is to encourage students to
develop an ability to communicate and interact with others, to develop fluency and natural in expression and to
have bravery share their ideas, feeling and opinion to other people. The goal of speaking is to communicate, as
Henry Guntur Tarigan says: “the particular aim of speaking is to communicate”. Speech has three general goals:
“to inform, to entertain and to persuade”.

METHOD

This study employed correlational research design to examine the degree of correlation between attitude and
motivation towards students’ ability in speaking. A quantitative approach was used because it deals with numerical
data and statistical analysis (Latief, 2015), based on a test and questionnaire. This study particularly employed
explanatory design as the purpose of the study is to explain the correlation between two or more variable co-vary.
(Creswell, 2012). It means that the researcher wanted to know whether variables from attitude and motivation was
significantly correlated to students’ speaking ability. The population of this study was students of MA Matholi ’’ul
Anwar Simo Lamongan, 58 students as the population. Therefore the sampling procedures needed to be done.
Excellent classes were chosen to be a sample of this research, some students come from the rural area, they are
obligated to stay in Pesantren. In a correlational study, the participant must be at least 30 students to give an
accurate estimate of the degree of relationship (Gay dan Diehl, 1992). Besides, Arikunto (2008) precisely states
that if there are less than 100 students in the population, it was better to take all students as the samples. The
questionnaire was adapted from the Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB), Istianti (2013) and Apriyani (2015).
The speaking test was adapted from Brown (2004). The test used was a speaking test of transactional
conversations in which students have a conversation about Asking and giving an opinion (based on K-13 lesson).
All of the data above were analyzed by using linear regression to know the correlation between students’
attitude and students’ motivation towards speaking ability.
Using partial by linear regression analysis serves to find the great of the correlation between two
variables, namely the predictor variable (X1) and a criterion variable (Y). decision making in the linear regression
test can be compared between the Sig. and 0.05 values based on decision making as follows: If the value of Sig.
<0.05 or according to V. Wiratna Sujarweni (2014;155) if t count > t table then H_o will be rejected and H_a is
accepted, meaning that there is a significant relationship/correlation between variables X2 and Y. If the value of
Sig. >0.05 or t count < t table then H_o will be accepted and H_a is rejected, meaning that there is no significant
relationship/correlation between variables X2 to Y. And the last analyses to measure how many contributions each
variable and which one is the greater contribution giving by X1 variable to Y or X2 variable to Y. Using
simultaneously correlation analysis by linear regression serves to find out the great of the correlation and
contribution of two predictor variables (X) or more simultaneously (together) with the criterion variable (Y).
Decision making in multiple correlation test can be compared by comparing the Sig value with 0.05 with the basis
of decision making as follows: According to Imam Ghozali (2011:101) If the value of Sig. F Change <0.05, or F
count > F table then H_o will be rejected and H_a accepted, meaning there is a significant correlation
 5

simultaneously between variables X1 and X2 to Y. If the value of Sig. F Change>0.05, or F count < F table then
H_o will be accepted and H_a is rejected, meaning there is no significant correlation simultaneously between
variables X1 and X 2 to Y. The degree of guidance coefisien correlation based on V. Wiratna Sujarweni
(2014;155) the value of pearson correlation 0,00 s/d 0,20 = no correlation, the value of pearson correlation 0,21s/d
0,40 = weak correlation, the value pearson correlation 0,41 s/d 0,60 = medium correlation, the value of pearson
correlation 0,61 s/d 0,80 = strong correlation and the value of pearson correlation 0,81 s/d 1,00 = perfect
correlation.

RESULTS

The first analyzing is normality test purposing to measure the data giving a normal contribution or not,
from the data output SPSS in (appendix) we use one-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test because of the sample
under 50 participants and the result from Asymp. Sig (2-tailed) 173 bigger than .05 the test distribution is normal
Table 1 One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test

One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test

Attitude Motivation Speaking

N 58 58 58

Normal Parametersa,b Mean 32.16 37.12 25.66

Std. Deviation 7.588 4.357 4.119

Most Extreme Absolute .127 .167 .145

Differences
Positive .080 .125 .088

Negative -.127 -.167 -.145

Kolmogorov-Smirnov Z .966 1.271 1.106

Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) .308 .079 .173

The total score of 58 respondents From the data statistic above table 4.1 by applying for SPSS program,
the mean of students’ attitude score is 32 and students’ motivation score is 37, the attitude std. the deviation is 7.5
and the motivation std. the deviation is 4.3, the minimum score of students’ attitude is 18 and for motivation is 27
and the maximum score of students’ attitude is 44 and for motivation is 44.

Table 2 Output SPSS of hypothesis test H1 and H2 with t.

Coefficientsa

Model Unstandardized Standardized T Sig. Correlati

Coefficients Coefficients ons

B Std. Error Beta Zero-

order
 1 (Constant
5.716 3.868 1.478 .145
)

Attitude .199 .061 .367 3.270 .002 .482

Motivatio
.364 .106 .386 3.433 .001 .495
n

4.1.1 Hypothesis test one (H1)

From the resulting output SPSS above the value of Sig. for the correlation of Attitude (X1) to Y is .002 < .
05 and the value of (t) 3.27 > 2,262 so that can be concluded that (H1) accepted, it means that there is a
relationship between Attitude X1 to speaking Y
4.1.2 Hypothesis test Two (H2)
The correlation coefficient shows that the value of Sig. for the correlation of Motivation (X2) to
speaking Y is .001 < .05 and the value of (t) 3.433 > 2,262 so that can be concluded that (H2) accepted, it means
that there is a relationship between Motivation X2 to speaking Y
The test of the hypothesis (H3) with F Test

Table 3

ANOVAa

Model Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig.

1 Regression 355.852 2 177.926 16.010 .000b

Residual 611.252 55 11.114

Total 967.103 57

a. Dependent Variable: Speaking

b. Predictors: (Constant), Motivation, Attitude

Based on the output above known the value of significance for the correlation Attitude (X1) and
Motivation (X2) simultaneously towards speaking (Y) is.00 < .05 and the value of F count 16.01 > F table 4.1 so
that can be concluded H3 accepted, it means that there is the relationship between Attitude (X1) and Motivation
(X2) simultaneously towards speaking (Y)

Table 4 Coefficient Determination

Model Summary

Mod R R Adjusted R Std. Error Change Statistics

el Square Square of the
R Square F df1
Estimate
Change Chang
e
 7

1 .607a .368 .345 3.334 .368 16.010 2

Based on the output above known that the value of coefficient correlation R = .607 is on the value of
Pearson correlation 0,41 s/d 0,60 = medium correlation and the value of R Square is .368, it means that there is a
correlation variable (X1) and (X2) simultaneously towards variable Y contributed for 36.8%.

DISCUSSION

From the data analysis, it appeared that the correlation index students’ attitude (X_1 ) and students’
motivation (X_2 ) students’ learning speaking score (Y) r= .607 and the correlation index between (X_1 ) variable
and Y variable is r= 0.00. (X_2 ) and Y variable is r = 0.00. It means that between both variables has a very low
correlation. with the interval is 0.00-0.20. It indicated the gravity of correlation in this study is the very low level. It
concluded that there was a very weak correlation between students’ attitude and students’ motivation in learning
the speaking ability. Based on the data of the result, students showed how attitude and motivation took place on
their activities. Both of them had an important role in the language learning process. Attitude and Motivation were
like an organizer on their self which aroused their desire to learn. Students who were motivated and having a good
attitude were more successful than students who were not motivated. But, some of the students who were not
motivated, basically, they were able to practice their ability in speaking. Students who were motivated needed to
force themselves to practice and made themselves had a positive habitual to speak in English. Motivation drove
the students to pay more attention to the subject. Motivation made the students ready in the teaching-learning
process. So, the students understood easily about the material in learning to speak. Students who were motivated
had to practice their ability in their spare time. It was because an enjoy feeling on their self so they were happy in
doing this activity. The students who were motivated were successful in speaking achievement. Because they
paid attention to the materials. The students also paid attention to how the teacher practiced the word. When the
teacher gave the example of a word, they paid attention to the written word. When they found the difficulties, they
asked their teacher to repeat the utterances. After they read the written word, they looked at the teacher and saw
how the way to pronounce it. They continuously pronounced it, and it trained their speaking skill. The students
who were motivated and having a good attitude were aware of the aim of the learning process in the class. They
were aware that they should reach the goal of the process to get the achievement.
This awareness created a desire to learn moreover to practice the ability. Teachers utilized learning
tools focusing on high motivation and less on work avoidance motivation. The students' habits were brought with
them when they begin studying. Their habits were important because those motivations could greatly influence the
students’ ability to succeed. The students who were motivated would help acquire new information and decrease
the effect of low motivation. Besides, it was also evident that the students who were motivated, the more they
were able to benefit from the learning activities. Light brown and Spada (2001) identify motivation as an intricate
incident which can be identified along with two factors: “learners’ communicative and their attitudes towards the
second language community”. They believed that when learners thought that they needed to speak the second
language to be in touch with others or accomplish and achieving specialized desires and goals, and they were
motivated to obtain expertise and skill in it. Gardner and Lambert (1972) name the mentioned situation as
integrative motivation and instrumental motivation. Research has proved that whether second language learning is
successful or not directly and strongly concerns with these types of motivation (Lightbrown & Spada, 2001).
Related to attitude and motivation questionnaire, students showed how much motivation contributes to their self.
Students who had motivation were a success in speaking. Most language educators probably believed that
motivation caused better acquisition although there was some evidence that moderate or low motivation can be
just as strong. (Gardner and MacIntyre 1992). It was caused why students can succeed in the speaking test. The
students who were highly motivated paid more attention so they understood faster than other students. They were
listened and read the written word carefully.
They concerned in the way of how the speaker pronounced the word. By their motivation, they learned to
speak seriously. As Krashen (1981) claims that with high motivation, self-confidence, good self-esteem, and low-
level anxiety, a student will be better for success in second language acquisition. Furthermore, low motivation, low
self-confidence, and low self-esteem and debilitating anxiety formed a mental block that prevents comprehensible
input for language acquisition. When the students had a good motivation, they had more inner state of need or
desire that actives an individual to do something to satisfy them. Motivation became the forces that account for the
arousal, selection, direction, and continuation of behavior. Motivation drove an individual to take a positive effect
on their life. There are internal factors related to learners’ aspects of motivation. There are goals set, expectancy,
anxiety, self-confidence, and self-efficacy. In students’ perspectives, goals setting and expectancy were the most
prominent factors in sustaining their motivation to learn English. Most students had set goals for their English
learning and had a high expectation of the goal-attainment. Although these two aspects did not rank to the most
outstanding place in the result of teachers’ questionnaires, most teachers still confirmed the great effects of them.
Unexpectedly, students’ questionnaire did not show the very high anxiety in English class as teachers’ perceived.
Self-confidence and self-efficacy were not salient in the students’ part. It appeared that students were lacking self-
confidence and with a low sense of self-efficacy in general, which to a large extent made them underpowered to
sustain the effort in English learning, especially when facing obstacles or failures.

CONCLUSION
The finding from this study to investigate the correlation between attitude and speaking ability, the correlation
between motivation and speaking ability, and which variable predictor is more given contribution to variable
criterion, attitude or motivation’s students in MA Matholi’ul Anwar Lamongan. Based on the research findings and
discussion, some conclusions about those aforementioned aims are drawn. First, in terms of the correlation
between attitude and speaking ability, the statistical value implies that there is correlation between the
aforementioned variables. Actually, there has been contradiction among the experts in the realm towards this
issue whether or not attitudes correlates positively and significantly with students’ speaking ability. This present
study finally contributes to the statement above. The finding of this study suggest that we can effort students’
attitude to give contribution on their speaking performance. To put in another way, we cannot rely on students’
attitude in predicting their speaking ability.
Second, the finding of the study shows that a significant, even though categorized as low, correlation exists
in terms of the correlation between attitude and speaking ability. It means that the higher the attitude, the higher
score of speaking can be achieved. And also the correlation between motivation and speaking ability. It means
that the higher the motivation, the higher score of speaking can be achieved. Therefore, students’ motivation in
learning English can be a reliable predictor in for telling their speaking ability. Third, similar later conclusion, both
attitude and motivation found that motivation more higher than attitude it meant that the more motivation of
students have in learning English, the better speaking ability can be achieved, according to the description of the
data, motivation is a better predictor than attitude to predict students’ speaking ability. After doing the research
and looking at the conclusion above, it is found that there is a significant correlation between students’ motivation
in learning speaking and their speaking ability. it is in the interval of 0.00 - 0.20. It means that attitude and
motivation have a very low correlation in speaking. It is considered that there is a positive correlation between
students’ attitude and motivation (the X variable) and in learning speaking ability (Y variable) at a very low level. It
means that students with higher motivation will get better speaking ability than the lower one. From the findings
above, it is proved that motivation is an essential part of the teaching and learning process. Motivation can make
teaching and learning easier and more interesting. It is very good if both teacher and students motivate each other
in teaching and learning process.
English teacher has an important role to support their students in learning English, especially in speaking
skill. The teacher should create an interesting and comfortable situation in the classroom to make students speak
up confidently. Besides, students also should have motivation from inside themselves to learn to speak. It can
encourage students to learn and to achieve their goals. Motivated students will overcome obstacles which come to
them with strong powerful from inside. They like to face challenging things in learning. Moreover, motivated
students often get the best result because motivation will improve their performance to achieve their goals. The
writer also would give suggestions in the following points: For English teachers, they are expected to improve their
students’ motivation in learning English, especially in speaking skill because motivated students will concentrate
and enjoy the teaching and learning process. Besides, teachers should tell the importance of English knowledge
to their students. Secondly, for students, they are expected to increase their motivation in learning English,
especially speaking skill. They are also expected to be more aware that English is very important in their life.
Moreover, for the headmaster of this school, he is expected to encourage the English teachers to improve their
motivation in teaching and students’ motivation in learning English. Besides, the headmaster should enrich the
facilities of teaching and learning process that can encourage students’ motivation in learning English. Finally, for
further researchers who are interested in conducting a similar study. This study can be used as a reference for
them to support their study. However, further researchers are expected to take the larger sample in their study
because the sample of this study is only 58 respondents. They are also to conduct their study in a long time to get
more valid and more reliable data.

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