Attitudes of Students toward the Learning of English: A Cross-Sectional Study in Senior High Schools in Bima

1024x768 ABSTRAK Dermawan, Agus. 2017. Attitudes of Students toward the Learning of English: A Cross-Sectional Study in Senior High Schools in Bima. Thesis, Graduate Program in English Language Teaching, State University of Malang. Advisors (I) Prof. Bambang Yudi Cahyono, M.Pd., M.A., Ph.D., (II) Dr. Enny Irawati, M.Pd. Keywords: attitudes, students, the learning of English. In line with status of English as one of international languages and its important role in many aspects of life, it is considered that English is necessary to be taught in certain level of education. In Indonesia, it becomes a compulsory subject to be taught in senior high school. One of the important factors which influence language learning is attitude. It is stated that attitude toward the language learning has a crucial role as it influences students' success or failure. Besides, it is believed that attitudes toward language learning have an obvious influence on students' behaviors and consequently on their performance. When students have a positive attitude toward the learning of English, they tend to have positive action toward it. Unfortunately, not all students have a positive attitude toward the learning of English. The purpose of this study is to figure out students' attitudes toward the learning of English at senior high schools in Bima. This study uses a survey research design. It is a procedure in quantitative research in which researcher did a survey to a sample. The survey design employed in this study is cross-sectional. It was conducted in five senior high schools in Bima. The main instrument used in this study is questionnaire. It consists of 3 parts. Each part is the representative of three different components of attitude. Totally, there are 33 questionnaire items provided.  The questionnaire was distributed by the researcher himself to the respondents. Besides, an interview was employed to support data obtained from the questionnaire. A total number of respondents who participated in this study were 248 students. They were taken from both tenth and eleventh grades from five different senior high schools. The the result of this study showed that the majority of students have  positive attitudes toward the learning of English. It seems that they know as well as aware of the importance of English and the benefit they will get by mastering English. Students who have a positive attitude tend to do some efforts to beef up their English. This study only shows the description of students' attitudes which focused on the difference of their gender and its impact on their attitudes toward the learning of English. Therefore, it is suggested to those who are interested in doing a study on the similar topic to elaborate more students' attitudes toward the learning of English by considering another factor such as students' grade of study. By doing it, the further researchers will have comprehensive understanding in knowing the description of students' attitudes toward the learning of English. Normal 0 false false false IN X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:Table Normal; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:Calibri,sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:Times New Roman; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:Times New Roman; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}