bahasa iggris.indb EEJ 3 (1) (2013) English Education Journal http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/eej THE EFFECTIVENESS OF ENGLISH LEARNING THROUGH THE SOCIAL NETWORK SITES IN ENHANCING THE STUDENTS’ SPEAKING COMPETENCE Untung  Postgraduate Program of Semarang State University, Indonesia Abstrak Penelitian ini menguji penggunaan tindak tutur lewat komunikasi komputer, terutama pesan status jejaring sosial Facebook, untuk berkomunikasi baik dalam jumlah besar maupun antar pribadi. Jumlah pesan status ada 352 yang dihasilkan oleh 20 responden yang diambil dalam 3 kali sehari selama kurang lebih 30 hari. Analisa data menunjukan bahwa pesan status yang sering digunakan adalah ‘assertives’ (menegaskan) dan diikuti oleh ‘directives’ (menyuruh). Pesan status yang muncul sebagai tambahan yaitu ‘jokes’ (gurauan) sebesar 3.13%. Uji sample t-tes berpasangan menunjukan adanya perbedaan pencapaian prestasi yang bermakna antara siswa dengan akses internet yang tinggi dan rendah. Sedangkan analisis faktorial varian menunjukan bahwa ada perbedaan kemampuan berbicara yang bermakna antara siswa yang belajar dengan Facebook dengan siswa yang belajar secara konvensional. Abstract This research examines the use of speech acts in computer-mediated communication, specifi- cally in the status messages of the social network site Facebook, to communicate in both a mass and an interpersonal medium. A total of 352 status messages created by 20 participants were captured 3 times daily over 30 successive days. Content analysis of these data revealed that status messages were most frequently constructed with assertives speech acts, followed by directives. Additionally, jokes were integrated into almost 3.13% of these status messages. The paired sample t-test revealed there was a significant difference in achievement between the high internet access students and the low internet access ones. While Factorial Analysis of Variance showed that there was a significant difference between the students’ speaking competence by using social network sites and those who are taught by using a conventional approach. © 2013 Universitas Negeri Semarang Info Artikel Sejarah Artikel: Diterima April 2013 Disetujui Mei 2013 Dipublikasikan Juni 2013 Keywords: Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC); Social Network Sites (SNSs); Internet Access.  Alamat korespondensi: Kampus Unnes Bendan Ngisor, Semarang 50233 E-mail: jurnalpps@unnes.ac.id ISSN 2087-0108 35 Untung / English Education Journal 3 (1) (2013) INTRODUCTION Most of Indonesian students, especially, Javanese, feel embarrassed or unconfident when they are forced to communicate in English. They tend to avoid using English in their communi- cation because of some reasons above. Javanese people develop their own basic faith in their com- munity, and experience between inner personality (faith, warmth, friendliness, and safety) and ou- ter personality (respectfulness, shyness, awe, dis- tance, danger) (Suseno, 2001: 197). These faiths influence the attitude and behavior of Javanese people in learning and mastering something, par- ticularly in a second language acquisition. As a social mankind, people need com- municate to exchange their feelings, ideas and thoughts. Communication will be effective and significant if the aim of the communication is achieved properly; both speaker and hearer have the same interpretation and perception of the topic they are talking about. In endeavoring to express themselves, people do not only produce utterances containing grammatical structures and words, but also perform actions via those utteran- ces (Yule, 1996: 47) and he called performed ac- tions via utterances as speech acts. As the technology develops, people com- municate one another in any different ways. Nowadays, there are many people, especially students using Computer-Mediated Communica- tion (CMC). Facebook is considered as an educa- tional apparatus because of its beneficial qualities such as enabling peer feedback, goodness of fit with social context, and interaction tools (Mason, 2006). Through Facebook, students can express their thoughts, feelings and ideas more freely and relax. It will become the good preparation for them to deliver their ideas when they communi- cate one another. Austin in Levinson (1983: 236) states that there are three levels of action beyond the act of the utterance itself. Firstly, the act of saying something; which is called as the “locutionary act”. Locutionary act is defined as the actual of uttering of a sentence with a particular meaning. Second, the acts done in speaking; which is cal- led “illocutionary acts”. The third, perlocutiona- ry act which is defined as a consequence or acts performed by speaking. Yule (1996: 49) claims that three of the ty- pes of speech acts, the most distinctive one is il- locutionary force: “Indeed, the term speech act is generally interpreted quite narrowly to mean only the illocutionary force of an utterance”. Searle (1976) quoted in Levinson (1983: 240) and Mey (1993;131-132) propose a five-way classification of illocutionary acts, that is, representatives or assertive, directives, commissives, expressive, and declarative. The verbal response modes (VRM) ta- xonomy (Stiles, 1992) is a general purpose clas- sification of speech acts. Stiles (1992: 15) further defined each utterance as a simple sentence; inde- pendent clause; nonrestrictive dependent clause; multiple predicate; or term of acknowledgment, evaluation, or address) in dyadic conversation is coded as reflection (R), acknowledgment (K), in- terpretation (I), question (Q), confirmation (C), edification (E), advisement (A), or disclosure (D). Social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site (Boyd & Ellison, 2007; also see Boyed, 2003). While the term “social network site” is used to describe this phenomenon, the term “social networking sites” also appears in public discourse, and the two terms are often used in- terchangeably. The term of “networking” is not chosen for two reasons: emphasis and scope. “Networking” emphasizes relationship initiati- on, often between strangers. While networking is possible on these sites, it is not the primary prac- tice on many of them, nor is it what differentiates them from other forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC) (Warchauer, 2000: 3-4; also see Bumgamer, 2007; Cassidy, 2006) Schools and teachers have always been expected to promote social skills among stu- dents, modeling how to collaborate, negotiate conflict, exchange informatia on, and evaluate truth. When used properly and developed with smart pedagogy, the principles of today’s social networking can be used to enhance and build on traditional classroom learning and develop 21st century skills that future employers and the world economy now consistently demand, such as technological proficiency, civic duty, commu- nication, teamwork, cultural awareness, and fi- nancial literacy. Facebook (http://facebook.com) is a so- cial networking site where people form connec- tions, both personal and professional. It was origi- nally developed for college and university use but has expanded to include people from all walks of life. People can post status messages on their wall about what they are doing or thinking, share pho- Untung / English Education Journal 3 (1) (2013) 36 tos and videos, and comment on status messages or media of others in their network. Developers can use hooks into the Facebook system to build small games and applications that people can subscribe to; these allow users to engage socially with their connections, and they integrate with Facebook in a way that allows the applications to post information to the user’s walls as well. Searle (1969) applies three primary dimen- sions. These are the illocutionary point, the di- rection of fit, and the sincerity condition. On the basis of the three dimensions, Searle then propo- ses the next classes of speech acts (as usual the speaker is denoted by S, the hearer by H, and the propositional content by p). The illocutionary point of the members of assertives or representatives is to commit the speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition. The il- locutionary point of directives acts consists in the fact that they are attempts by the speaker to get the hearer to do something, expressed by the pro- positional content. Commissives are those speech acts whose illocutionary point is to commit the speaker to some future course of action. Speech acts of this kind create an obligation on the part of the speaker; that is, they commit the speaker to do something and to expressing an intention. The illocutionary point of expressives is to express the psychological state specified in the sincerity condition about a state of affairs specified in the propositional content. The illocutionary point of declaratives is that its successful performance gua- rantees the correspondence between the proposi- tion p and the world (Leech, 1983). Verbal Response Modes (VRM) is a prin- cipled taxonomy of speech acts that can be used to classify literal and pragmatic meaning within utterances (Stiles, 1992: 16). Each utterance is co- ded twice: once for its literal meaning, and once for its communicative intent or pragmatic meaning. The same VRM categories are used in each case. Under the VRM system, every utterance from a speaker can be considered to concern either the speaker’s or the other’s experience. First language acquisition starts with liste- ning. A child uses the ears as a medium to receive lot of linguistic input, namely, sounds, vocabu- lary and grammar. it learns to make distinctions between different sounds used in language. As it grows, it starts to use the input to change it into speech (output). Therefore, it can be said that listening and speaking are closely related. If the child is deaf, it can not acquire language. Reading and writing can be said to be closely related. For the child to be able to write, it needs to learn the relationship between the sounds and letters. People read and listen to language because they have desire to do so and a purpose to achie- ve. They will usually have expectation about the content of text before they start as well. Readers or listeners employ a number of specialist skills when reading or listening and their success at un- derstanding the content of what they see or hear depends on a large extend on their expertise in these specialist skills. Reading is central to the learning process. One of the most difficult tasks of a language te- acher, both in first and second language contex- ts is to foster a positive attitude toward reading. Unfortunately, due to time limits and other constraints, teachers are often unable to actively encourage students to seek entertainment and in- formation in reading materials. A simple definition of reading is that it is a process whereby one looks at and understands what has been written. Grabe & Fredericka (2003: 9) defines that reading is the ability to draw mea- ning from the printed page and interpret this in- formation appropriately. Listening is an important skill for person who is learning English because in verbal com- munication we cannot communicate with each other without listening to the speaker’s utterances and understanding them. However, listening is very demanding and challenging skill for the lear- ners to master. Many students often encounter trouble in listening to foreign people even though they are doing well in the English classroom. Listening is the ability to identify and un- derstand spoken language. Listening is a recep- tive skill. The receptive skills used in language acquisition: listening and reading enable the pro- ductive skills: speaking and writing. Listening is the communication skill used most often in the assimilation of information and the most neg- lected in foreign language teaching (Hedge, 2002: 228-229). Harmer (1991: 49; 1994) points out stu- dents should have some kind of communicative purpose; in other words they should be using lan- guage in some way to achieve an objective, and this objective should be the most important part of communication. The students, however, will have to deal with a variety of language (either receptively or productively) rather than just one grammatical construction. Writing is one of the productive skills that a learner is expected to achieve in order to en- sure his communicative competence. Writing is a visual representation of speech in writing and speaking the language learner is engaged in com- municating his ideas and feelings. In the case of 37 Untung / English Education Journal 3 (1) (2013) speaking, a kind of give and take situation bet- ween listener and speaker exits. In the case of writing, however, the message communicated has a higher degree of finiteness and this skill re- quires real proficiency if communication has to be effective. Speaking is “the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts” (Chaney, 1998: 13; also see Brown & Yule, 1983; Byrne, 1986; Huges, 2002; Kayi, 2006; Richards, 2008; Thornbury, 2005). Speaking is a crucial part of second language learning and teaching. Speaking is considered by learners as one of the most difficult skills as it involves real-time processing which means that learners do not have much time to formulate what they want to say and how to say that students often avoid speaking and therefore never get the opportunity to build up confidence through practice. A further reason that students avoid speaking is that they are af- raid of it. They are afraid of making mistakes, of not being understood because of poor pronuncia- tion. This poor pronunciation often stems from previous learning experiences where there has been an emphasis on written accuracy with little chance to develop oral skills. Students may also, in many cases, have little opportunity to practice their English speaking outside of the classroom environment. However, mastering speaking skills is not easy matter, the students need a medium that can help them to create a conversation with the ot- hers inside and outside of the classroom. It can mediate them by utilizing Facebook as the tool or media where they can converse one another freely and confidently. People use different methods to commu- nicate with each other. Effective communication involves reading, writing and speaking altoget- her. Verbal and written communication plays a key role in information exchanging process. Any form of communication works in the same man- ner and has similar importance. Speaking falls under verbal communication. Written commu- nication falls under nonverbal communication. People can communicate effectively through writ- ten communication as same as through speaking. This study intends to confirm the following hypotheses. (1) There is no a significant differen- ce in achievement between the high internet ac- cess students and the low internet access ones, (2) There is a significant difference in achievement between the high internet access students and the low internet access ones. METHODS This study is an Experimental Research which uses factorial design as it used use more than one independent variable. Experimental Rese- arch is an attempt by the researcher to maintain control over all factors that may affect the result of an experiment. In doing this, the researcher at- tempts to determine or predict what may occur. The population of this research is the twelfth grade students of Social Science Program of State Senior High School 1 Purbalingga in the academic year 2011/2012. Subjects for the study were selected from four classes of twelfth grade. In total 40 students were surveyed and were ran- domly assigned. Twenty students comprised the experimental group and received social network sites to practice their speech acts. Twenty students served as a control group. These students repre- sented the high and low access internet based on the preliminary research and questionnaire. The main source of data obtained for ana- lysis in this study is through students’ performan- ce scores in the first semester, pretest, post-test, observable data (Facebook activity), questionnai- re and interview. To gather the data, firstly, the researcher made an observation to determine the subjects of the experiment and getting student’s prior scores to determine the Experimental Group and Control Group. Then the researcher asked the students to chat through Facebook as the preliminary research to know the high and low internet access and design the questionnaire for the length of internet access for the Experimental and Control Group. Pre-test was done after the high and low internet access for the Experimental and Control Group had been determined. After that, the researcher prepared some instruments such as Facebook account, questionnaires, spea- king test for post-test. Finally, the researcher plan- ned to do the experiment to take the data. Data which are used to recognize the ef- fectiveness of Facebook to enhance the students’ speaking competence by utilizing speech acts are based on students’ English score, high and inter- net access questionnaires, pretest and post-test, Facebook activity, and students’ interview result. Comparisons were drawn between the high and low internet access experimental groups and control ones based on pretest and post-test and depending on the aim of the analysis. Student’s t-test is a test which can indicate whether the null hypothesis is correct or not. In research it is often used to test differences between two groups (e.g. between a control group and an experimental group). The t-test assumes that the data are more Untung / English Education Journal 3 (1) (2013) 38 or less normally distributed and that the variance is equal (this can be tested by the F-test). Data which was analyzed originated from the subjects’ scores, the level of internet access, the implementation of the use of social network sites for the experimetal groups and learning speech acts conventionally for the control groups. Students’ scores were obtained from pretest and post-test. Scoring rubric designed by Brown (2004: 172) was used to assess the students’ spea- king competenc RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS The differences among the each group are shown from the result of the paired sample t-test to test the hypothesis. From the t-test result re- vealed that hypothesis that says “There is no a significant difference in achievement between the high internet access students and the low internet access ones” by using social network sites and conventional approach is refused since the diffe- rence is significant. Based on the output of F value shows the effectiveness of the use of social network sites in enhancing students’ speaking competence by uti- lizing speech acts. Furthermore, the result of the different variance of each group shows that the students given treatment by using social network sites have better improvement in their speaking competence compared with those by using con- ventional approach. From the answers of students’ question- naires and interviews, most students from two groups of the high and the low experimental ones reported that conversing through Facebook is ef- fective and creative. The present study was designed to deter- mine the effectiveness of social network sites in enhancing the students’ speaking competence by utilizing speech acts. Recent investigations have pointed out that Facebook can have a positive ef- fect on the student-to-student and student-to-te- acher relationship. The results of the same study suggested that students appeared to develop posi- tive attitudes towards the teacher and the course. These findings pointed out that a Social Network Community (SNC) can be an asset in building a community of learners. This study presented the way the resear- cher uses social network sites in enhancing the students’ spaking competence by utilizing speech acts. Facebook activity was performed as the main part of learning process to communicate one another. Through Facebook, the experimen- tal groups practice some speech acts by respon- ding what the teacher writes on the status. The students join this program at least four weeks. Facebook allows its users to carry out meaningful interaction synchronously or asyn- chronously with speakers of different languages and also to access an incredible amount of va- luable and authentic information on a variety of topics. In other words, this SNC can be seen as an innovative tool to facilitate the development of socio-pragmatic awareness and competence in second language learners through meaningful intervention, and can promote cross-cultural un- derstanding. Speaking is an activity used by someone to communicate with other. It takes place everyw- here and has become part of our daily activities. When someone speaks, he or she interacts and uses the language to express his or her ideas, fee- lings, and thoughts. He or she also shares infor- mation to other through communication. In the classroom, the teacher must create the situation that can encourage real communication, many activities can be designed to make majors’ element lively. From results, it is clear that the use of Fa- cebook proved that the student’s speaking com- petence was enhanced. It was shown that mean scores of experimental groups were higher than those of control groups. The outcome of the mean scores also revealed difference between the high internet access groups and low internet ac- cess ones. Most conversations of high internet ac- cess experimental group could talk each other va- riously and sustainably. They talked one another more fluent and more various topics they express. The low internet access experimental group did the same way, but their conversations were still simple and undeveloped. From the data description provided the re- searcher can say that the level of internet access gives influence in learning English, especially in learning speaking. It can be seen from the data re- sult between the experimental group of high and low internet access are different. Further studies, which take these variables into account, will need to be undertaken. CONCLUSION Some expressions were produced by the students as long as they practiced their speech acts through Facebook. They are assertives, direc- tives, commisives, expressives and declarations, however during the activity there is the expressi- 39 Untung / English Education Journal 3 (1) (2013) on which appears as the part of communication, that is, joke. Assertives account for 36.36% (128), directives 26.70% (94), commisives 18.75% (66), expressives 15.06 (53), declarations 0.00% (0), and jokes 3.13% (11). A series of steps are designed to carry out the experiment. Written communication can be a good preparation and prerequisite knowledge for the students to converse one another. They will be more confident and easier to communi- cate in English when they have enough prepa- ration. Written communication is in line with improving speaking skills, the more the students practice their English in written communication, the easier the students will express their ideas and thoughts in spoken communication. Further, the result of this study revealed that the students in experimental group got better achievement in the mean scores than the control group in speaking test. The mean scores of ex- perimental group (87.75) is greater that those of control groups (85.30). As the result of Factorial ANOVA analy- sis indicated the significant difference, F value is greater than F table (14.213>4.098). It can be inferred that both high and low internet access from the experimental group could enhance their speaking competence by utilizing speech acts af- ter they had treatment by taking part in the Face- book activity. Teachers, as a facilitator and motivator, they should always encourage their students in digging up their prior knowledge to improve their speaking proficiency through social network si- tes, Facebook. Teachers, the senior high school teachers, should improve their teaching students not only to answer questions but also to design the ques- tions in communication. The students will be get used to expressing ideas and thoughts in English, if they are provided with the meaningful activity they feel that they need it. English teachers must be able to use some alternative strategies in teaching and learning process in the classroom to improve the students’ speaking competence, like the use of social net- work sites, so the students will be interested in learning English. 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