The Difficulties of the Second Semester Students at Universitas Islam Malang in Speaking Courses during Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Speaking is one of the four skills in English subject as a means to communicate with others. The aim of this study is 1) to find out the difficulties by the students in learning speaking through online learning. 2) To investigate the way the students solve the problems in learning speaking through online learning. The researcher used qualitative design in this study. In collecting the data, the researcher used questionnaires and interview questions. The population of this study is second-semester students in the academic year 2019/2020 where the researcher chose 47 students as a subject of this study. The data analyzed by using a descriptive qualitative method with three steps; data reduction, data display, and description. To know the student's difficulties the researcher used both questionnaires and interview and the way to solve their difficulties the researcher only used interviews. The sampling technique was used as a purposive sampling technique. Purposive sampling technique is used to establish characteristics in the research subject. The researcher chose the respondent in the second-semester students because early-stage learners have difficulty in learning speaking. From the data analysis, the researcher draws some conclusion of the student's problem in learning English speaking during the Covid-19 as follows; first, the researcher found the student's problems in learning English speaking through online learning were: limited vocabulary, pronunciation trouble, internet connection, students feel boring, and students less of practicing. Second, the ways students solve the problems were: Increasing vocabulary mastery, keeping speak English, practicing a lot, finding an appropriate way to learn English, and Networking support systems. In the learning English speaking course, every student has his problems with it either from the students themselves or from the other factors. In this study, the researcher found 5 difficulties in learning speaking through online and some ways to solve those problems that can be applied both by students and lecturers.