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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Research

Language is an important aspect in human life. Language is used by

people as communication tools to interact with one another, and with

language human expressing their feelings. One of the important language

must be learned today is English. As a Muslim, learning a foreign language is

not prohibited in religion, even learning a foreign language with good

intentions is recommended in Islam. As a hadith of prophet Muhammad SAW

as follow:

‫ت قَا َل‬ ٍ ِ‫ت َع ْن أَبِي ِه َز ْي ِد ب ِْن ثَاب‬ ٍ ِ‫ار َجةَ ب ِْن َز ْي ِد ب ِْن ثَاب‬
ِ ‫َع ْن َخ‬
‫ت‬ِ ‫ أَ ْن أَتَ َعلَّ َم لَهُ َكلِ َما‬-‫صلى هللا عليه وسلم‬- ِ ‫أَ َم َرنِى َرسُو ُل هَّللا‬
‫ قَا َل‬.» ‫ب‬ ٍ ‫ قَا َل « إِنِّى َوهَّللا ِ َما آ َم ُن يَهُو َد َعلَى ِكتَا‬.‫ب يَهُو َد‬ ِ ‫ِكتَا‬
َ ‫ف َشه ٍْر َحتَّى تَ َعلَّ ْمتُهُ لَهُ قَا َل فَلَ َّما تَ َعلَّ ْمتُهُ َك‬
‫ان‬ ُ ْ‫فَ َما َم َّر بِى ِنص‬
ُ‫ت لَه‬ ُ ‫ْت إِلَ ْي ِه ْم َوإِ َذا َكتَبُوا إِلَ ْي ِه قَ َر ْأ‬
ُ ‫ب إِلَى يَهُو َد َكتَب‬ َ َ‫إِ َذا َكت‬
‫ص ِحي ٌح‬ َ ‫يث َح َس ٌن‬ ٌ ‫ قَا َل أَبُو ِعي َسى هَ َذا َح ِد‬.‫ِكتَابَهُ ْم‬

Meaning: From Kharijah bin Zaid bin Tsabit, from her father: Zaid bin Tsabit,
He Said “ Rasulullah Shalallahu ‘alaihi wassallam ask me to learn -
for him – sentences (laguange) from book (his letter) Jew said: “In the
name of Allah, I don’t feel safe from (obedience) of Jew from my
letter.” Then it wan’t until half a month that I was able to master their
language, when I mastered it, then if he wrote a letter to the Jew then I
wrote it, and when they (jew) wrote a letter for him then I read it to
him”. (H.R. At Tirmidzi No.2933).1

1
Al-Imam Muhammad bin Ismail Al-Bukhary. 2010. Shahih Al-Bukhari. (Surabaya:
Pustaka Adil). P. 369

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Based on hadith explanation above, it can be concluded that our prophet

Muhammad SAW suggests his followers to study foreign language and one

of the important language must be learned today is English.

English has been generally accepted as universal language in the world.

People learn English with different goals, for the sake of work, for life skills,

hobbies, and in preparation for the globalization era 4.0. Besides English is

also a language included in the learning curriculum in Indonesia. So,

indirectly English is a compulsory subject course that students must master at

the educational level.

English is a language that is rather difficult to learn, Suhartin states that

English is a language that is rather difficult for us to learn by Indonesians

because English is different in writing and pronunciation and also has

different sentence structures, which makes English difficult to learn. 2

Although English is considered difficult by some people but English is still in

demand.

In the modern society of economic globalization, academic exchanges

and talent exchanges among universities are also increasing day by day.

Nowadays, college students' English competence will face greater challenges,

and it is also one of the key conditions for international communication

learning to achieve better results.

At present, the awareness of pronunciation and intonation of college

students in English learning is generally weak, and their oral English ability is

2
Suharti, RI. 2004. Mengatasi Kesulitan-Kesulitan Dalam Pendidikan Anak. Jakarta:
Gunung Mulya. P. 85
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generally weak. In the whole process of learning English, college students in

our country mostly study English reading, cloze filling and English writing

with their heads covered, but they neglect the training of English intonation

and spoken English seriously.

In English teaching, we should pay attention to the cultivation of

students' comprehensive English application ability, especially listening and

speaking ability. The ability to listen and speak enables college students to

have a good command of English in the actual workplace and to effectively

solve communication problems with foreign friends. Under such

circumstances, we can effectively communicate with foreign friends and lay a

good foundation for academic research. How can we improve college

students' oral and listening abilities? There are many ways to improve

students' listening and speaking abilities, but this paper explores the issues

related to the cultivation of students' awareness of pronunciation and

intonation. It is believed that by adopting suitable teaching and training

strategies in College English teaching classes, students' awareness of

pronunciation and intonation can be improved, and finally their listening and

speaking abilities can be improved.

Among the college students in IAIN Kerinci, there is a common

problem that students' English pronunciation is not standard. The problems

caused by poor pronunciation are obvious in two aspects: first, students' poor

oral English and communication barriers to a certain extent; second, students'

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poor listening ability and low listening ability. There is a direct relationship

between poor oral pronunciation and poor listening ability.

Generally speaking, people who do not have standard oral

pronunciation do not know the way people usually pronounce certain words.

So when other people talk, they do not understand what it means. English

pronunciation has many characteristics different from Indonesian meaning,

which requires every one of us to pay special attention to pronunciation. For

example, in English reading aloud, there are often techniques such as liaison

and weak reading, which lead to different sounds of the same word in

different sentences. If the word "the" is followed by a word that begins with a

vowel letter, "the" will change its spelling sound. For example, if the letter

"a" is preceded by a word that ends with the pronunciation "t", then the

pronunciation is the continuous reading of "t" and "a". Therefore, if you are

not familiar with these techniques, you will not be able to understand why the

pronunciation is quite different in different places. These problems lead to

students' inability to understand the listening part of the topic when they are

learning English. Almost half of them depend on strength and half on luck.

College students are required to have strong listening and speaking

abilities in some English examinations, such as IELTS and TOEFL. Only

after passing these highly recognized examinations can college students be

identified as having strong English pronunciation and intonation ability.

However, college students often fail to meet such requirements. This is due to

the fact that college students can not effectively transform their identities in
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scene simulation so as to produce appropriate pronunciation and intonation.

For example, she barely goes shopping on sunday. Shopping and Sunday are

the core words and important words to get information. But one of the most

important words in this sentence is "barely", which completely negates the

meaning of the whole sentence. But in the process of intonation

pronunciation, the reader quickly made the "barely" sound. College students

with inaccurate pronunciation and intonation may not be able to recognize

them. In this way, the meaning of the whole sentence is different.

English is pronounced with stress. In an English sentence, the number

of stresses determines the speed of the sentence, which is difficult to be

understood. For sentences with incomplete length, if they contain the same

number of stresses, they give the audience a totally different listening

experience. In this case, the shorter sentence will read very slowly, but the

longer sentence, on the contrary, will read faster. This is the great role of

English pronunciation and mood in sentence spelling, and it is also an

important difference between Indonesian sentences. These tones can also play

a very important role in students' listening comprehension. For example, for

different types of rhetorical questions, emphasizing sentence patterns,

exclamation sentences, etc., the pronunciation of stress reflects completely

different auditory feelings, and only those who understand that the

pronunciation mood has a great impact on the meaning of sentences can

finally grasp the rules of learning English.

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Based on the explanation above, the researcher is interested in

conducting research with the title: “Students’ Strategies In Improving

Their Pronunciation: A Study At Fifth Semester Of English Department

Students Of Iain Kerinci Academic Year 2021/2022”.

B. Identification of Problems

Based on the background above, the problems can be identified as

bellow:

1. Students’ are not too motivate in learning English, it is can be seen from

students’ activity and attention in teaching and learning process, where

most of student do not give attention to the teacher while the teacher

explain the material. Some of students talk each other, and some other

busy scribing on their book.

2. There were still students who were late. The students who are late when

asked by researcher, they have variety of reasons, some are late for

helping parent at home like cook and clean house for female, dropping

off their parents go to work, and getting up late.

3. There is a gender difference in the tasks that students get, female students

who help parents take care of the house, and male students take parents

to work on motorbikes.

C. Limitation of Problems
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This research is limited to know the correlation Among Students’

Gender, Discipline and Their Motivation in Learning English at the Eleventh

Grade of Senior High School 6 Kerinci.

D. Research Question

Based on the identification of problems above, the research questions

can be formulated as: How are correlation Among Students’ Gender,

Discipline and Their Motivation in Learning English at the Eleventh Grade of

Senior High School 6 Kerinci ?

E. Purpose of the Research

Based on the research question above, the purposes of the research is to

know the correlation Among Students’ Gender, Discipline and Their

Motivation in Learning English at the Eleventh Grade of Senior High School

6 Kerinci.

F. Significance of Research

The benefits of this research consist of theoretical benefits and practical

benefits, both can be explained as bellow:

1. Theoretical significance of the research

The results of this study are expected to contribute in education field,

especially about correlation Among Students’ Gender, Discipline and

Their Motivation in Learning English.

2. Practical significance of the research

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a. For the teacher, this research is expected to increase teacher

knowledge about the correlation Among Students’ Gender, Discipline

and Their Motivation in Learning English.

b. For the next researcher, The results of this research are expected to be

source of reference and can provide information about correlation

Among Students’ Gender, Discipline and Their Motivation in

Learning English.

G. Difinition of Key Terms

1. Correlation is a change that make more accurate than it was before.3

2. Student is a person who is studying at university, collage or school 4

3. Gender is a psychosocial aspect of men and women socially constructed,

gender differences include in terms of roles, behaviors, inclinations,

traits, and other attributes that explain the meaning be a man or woman in

existing culture.5

4. Discipline is the practice of training people to ovey rules and orders and

punishing them if they do not the controlled behavior or situation that

result from this training.6

5. Motivation is having desire and willingness to do something.7

3
Hornby AS. 2003. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary Of Current English Six
Edition. Oxford University. P. 296
4
Ibid., P. 1344
5
Marbun, M. Stefanus. 2018. Psikologi Pendidikan. Sidoharjo : Uwais Inspirasi Indonesia.
P. 44
6
Op. Cit., P. 375
7
O’neal, Paul. W. 2007. Motivation of Health Behavior. New York: Nova Science
Publishers, Inc. P. vii
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6. Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the

transformation of experience.8

7. English is one of the subject studied in Senior High School 6 Kerinci

8. State Senior High School/ SMAN 6 Kerinci is an educational institution

located in Simpang Empat Danau Kerinci, Regency of Kerinci, Jambi

Province Zip Code 37172

H. Hypothesis

In accordance with the background of the research, and research

question, the research hypothesis is formulated as follow:

There is no correlation between students’ gender on student’s Ho : r = 0, 1.

motivation in Learning English.

There is correlation between students’ gender on student’s H1 : r ≠ 0,

motivation in Learning English.

There is no correlation between students’ Dicipline on Ho : r = 0, 2.

student’s motivation in Learning English.

There is correlation between students’ Gender and Dicipline H2 : r ≠ 0,

on student’s motivation in Learning English.

There is no correlation between students’ Dicipline on Ho : r = 0, 3.

student’s motivation in Learning English.

There is correlation between students’ Gender and Dicipline H3 : r ≠ 0,

on student’s motivation in Learning English.

8
Mumford, Alan. 2004. Management Development Strategies for Action. London:
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development CIPD House.