International Journal of English Language and Teaching https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/IJoLTE 38 Volume 1 Issue 1, September 2017 Using Vlog in the Youtube Channel as a Means To Improve Students’ Motivation And Confidence to Speak English in Intermediate 1 Level of LB-LIA Jambi Pramita Sari pooja_swty@yahoo.com LB-LIA Jambi ABSTRACT Students find it hard to speak English despite the fact that they have the basic knowledge of the language due to the lack of motivation and confidence. As the technology advances, teachers must be willing to take advantage of the potential channels provided by it. This study aims to improve students’ motivation and confidence to speak English through the use of Vlog in the Youtube Channel as well as to find out the element that affect the most to the improvement of the motivation and confidence. The data were obtained through classroom observations, questionnaires and interviews. In terms of findings, this study revealed that the use of Vlog in the Youtube Channel improved students’ motivation and confidence. The data also suggested that students were most motivated and confident to speak English because they were given enough time to think of what they wanted to talk about and it was done in the place they found familiar. Therefore, teachers are suggested to bring technology into the classrooms more often and adjust it to the situation where students find it convenient to speak up. Key words: Vlog, Youtube Channel, Motivation, Confidence, English Background Communication is one of the essential hallmarks of the global society of 21st century. Business, politics, and the media all demand and expect seamless international exchange of information and ideas, and English is often the language of international interaction (Su, 2006). When two people interact who are not native speakers of the same language, they are likely to find common ground in English. The result is that English is now a global priority for economic development, science, culture and interactions among governments. But in spite of the emphasis of the immediate demand of English as an important key aspect in international communication, students who learn English in order to be able to keep up with the 21st century’s qualification, find it hard to speak English despite the fact that they have the basic knowledge of the language. Several reasons are found why this happens. In Indonesia, where English is considered as a foreign language, the lack of motivation and confidence among the students are the two common reasons (Juhana, 2012). Today, however, technology provides a global infrastructure with many potential channels for students to use English that may enhance their motivation and confidence to speak, namely search engines such as Googles and Yahoo, social medias such as mailto:pooja_swty@yahoo.com International Journal of English Language and Teaching https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/IJoLTE 39 Volume 1 Issue 1, September 2017 Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, or video-sharing website such as Youtube. Teachers, most importantly, must be willing to take advantage of such potential as a learning tool. Vlog A vlog is a video blog post. The term can also refer to a blog made up entirely of video blog posts (Gunelius, 2016). Vlog posts are created by creating a video of yourself or an event, uploading it to the Internet and publishing it within a post on your blog. In the early days of blogging, vlogs were called podcasts, a term that was used to refer to both audio and video blog posts. Today the two have adopted their own distinct nomenclature. The vlogosphere is a very democratic arena. Unlike mainstream media, such as television or commercial Web sites, vlogs are not, for the most part, created to make money. As a result, vloggers are free to make their content about whatever they desire, no matter how controversial the topic. Vlogging gives average citizens an audience and a chance to make their voices heard. YouTube Channel A channel on YouTube is the home page for a personal account, and a channel is required to upload videos, add comments or make playlists (Karch, 2017). A personal YouTube channel is available to everyone who joins YouTube as a member. The channel serves as the home page for the user's account. After the user enters and approves the information, the channel shows the account name, the account type, a personal description, the public videos the member uploads, a list of members who are friends and any user information the member enters. The channel also includes a section where other members can comment. Both Vlog and YouTube Channel when combined create a meaningful and enjoyable teaching media for students. First, because it gives chances for students to speak up using English without interruption. Second, students are given enough time to arrange what they want to deliver in their vlogs. Third, vlog can be done in any place at any time that are convenient for students to record themselves and speak their opinions. Motivation and Confidence Motivation and confidence are interrelated and interact with each other (Philips & Lindsay, 2006). One might say that mastering a new language is a hard thing to do and it takes up much time for the students to acquire it. That is why in learning English, especially in improving the speaking skill, students need to to have motivation in order to reach progress. Gage and Berliner (1984: 372) said that, “Motivation is the term to describe what energizes a person and what directs his or her activity.” That statement implies that motivation can be seen from the activities done by the learners. For example, when a student realizes that most of his or her friends speak English well, he/she is not only interested but also motivated to learn it. Furthermore, Dornyei (2003: 1) states, “Motivation is a multifaceted construct and the exact nature of the constituent components activated in a particular situation depends on greatly contextual factors.” https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-a-vlog-3476285 https://www.lifewire.com/create-a-youtube-business-account-2655503 International Journal of English Language and Teaching https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/IJoLTE 40 Volume 1 Issue 1, September 2017 This means that motivations is actually already exists in every person and motivates the person automatically once there is a stimulus given. Motivation is a mental power that causes something to happen. Sardiman in Arianingsih (2005:20) mentions some of the characteristics of a highly motivated person:  Being strong-willed and persistent in achieving a goal no matter what the obstacle is.  Able to work on a long period of time.  Show high interest towards problems.  Prefer to work alone rather than in groups but that does not mean that a highly motivated person avoids working in groups. Motivation can increase rapidly, given a positive stimulus while confidence is the reflection of motivation because it grows as the motivation increases. Thus, the use of appropriate technique or teaching media is crucial in improving students’ motivation and confidence to speak English. When the learning experience is positive and pleasant, it leads students to interact more frequently in English both outside and inside the classroom. Because the experience is enjoyable, the increased confidence, affected their motivation in a positive way. Methodology Research setting and participants This study was undertaken in LB-LIA Jambi of Intermediate 1 level of students. The classroom consists of 20 students. They are considered to have sufficient knowledge and ability in English as reflected from their daily performance score especially in reading and writing activities yet they have problem in speaking. Based on the classroom observation result and interview with the classroom teacher which were done before this study, students seemed reluctant when given speaking activities. They showed little interest in the activities and mostly produced simple and unelaborative sentences. Students also showed less initiative to volunteer to speak up or ask questions. Techniques of Collecting Data This study employed three techniques of collecting data namely classroom observation, questionnaires and interview with the classroom teacher. The observation was carried out to find out students’ participations and responses in speaking activities. It was done three times, each after two vlog tasks. Open-ended questionnaires were addressed to the respondents to get their responses in the form of written data.The interview with the classroom teacher was conducted to gain further information on students’ motivation and confidence to speak English.The questions revolved around her observation and evaluation as the classroom teacher and how she perceived students’ performance during speaking activities. As for the task for vlog in YouTube Channel was given after each unit in the material book was completed. Students were required to make one vlog for one unit/topic of discussion. Table 1. Questionnaire Items International Journal of English Language and Teaching https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/IJoLTE 41 Volume 1 Issue 1, September 2017 The following questions are not a test. Read them carefully then answer honestly. 1. After doing the tasks on making vlog in YouTube channel, do you think you are more motivated to speak English? Explain your answer. 2. After doing the tasks on making vlog in YouTube channel, do you think you are more confident to speak English? Explain your answer. 3. In what way do you think that making vlog in YouTube Channel could make you become more motivated and confident to speak English? 4. Which one do you prefer to do: the usual speaking activities in the classroom or doing vlog in YouTube Channel? Explain your answer. 5. Would you like to have more speaking activities that involve the latest technology as a part of the activities? Explain your answer. Discussion a. Students became more motivated and confident to speak English in class Through classroom observation, it is noticed that students’ motivation and confidence gradually improved. It was not yet seen until the second classroom observation that students showed more participation in speaking activities as well as higher responses. They stayed excited through out the whole speaking activities and spend longer time speaking until the given time by the teacher was up. By the time the last observation was conducted, it was clear that students now were more motivated and confident to speak in the class using English. This applied not only for the speaking activities given by the teacher but also for the classroom language. Regardless the complexity of the activities, the students remained highly participated. b. Questionnaires showed positive response From the open-ended questionnaires distributed to the students at the end of the cycle, most of the students’ gave positive response towards the use of vlog in YouTube Channel in improving their motivation and confidence. They agreed that the use of vlog helped growing their motivation and confidence to speak English higher. Mostly it was because the tasks were done in the place where they found most comfortable such as in their houses or bedrooms and that they were given enough time to think on what they wanted to say. The questionnaires also revealed that when given the choice, students’ enjoyed doing vlog as much as the common speaking activities in the class with their peers. Vlog enabled them to speak freely and comfortably without feeling anxious but doing activities in class wih the peers also gave them enjoyable learning moment and interactions. Since all of the students recorded the vlogs using their phones and that they were fairly technology savvy, all of them were enthusiastic on the ideas of bringing more technology into classroom activities. For one thing, technology was something that they were familiar with. It was also flexible and a lot more interactive compared to the traditional teaching media. c. Interviews with the classroom teacher International Journal of English Language and Teaching https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/IJoLTE 42 Volume 1 Issue 1, September 2017 The interviews were carried after each classroom observation. The teacher was pessimistic at the beginning of the cycle for she knew how poorly students’ performance on the speaking task was, but as we went through with the vlog tasks,she shared the same point of view that vlog helped improving students’ motivation and confidence to speak English in class. She expressed her great feelings as the students got more involved in speaking activities and showed more initiative and positive responses. Students’ progress was also reflected in their daily performance scores which steadily increased. Conclusion One goal of any academic program should be to provide a foundation from which students can further develop their own ability to adapt and continue learning on their own (Wu, Yen & Marek: 2011). In a nutshell, incorporating vlog in YouTube Channel in teaching helped to improve students’ motivation and confidence of Intermediate 1 level of LB-LIA Jambi.Most of the factors that indicated higher motivation and confidence were reflected from the students’ response and participation in the classroom. Additionally, the teacher agreed on seeing the improvement of her students’ during her teaching session. Bringing technology into teaching and learning process is now proven to be one of the most effective way to improve students’ general performance in quite significant result. For future improvement, the habit of combining technology into one of the teaching techniques used in class shoud not just stop here. Most importantly, teachers need to be more technology savvy and keep up with the advancement of the technology in order to be able to help students to improve their English. References Arianingsih, Y. (2005). Hubungan Motivasi Berprestasi Dengan Hasil Belajar Mata Pelajaran Ekonomi Pada Siswa Kelas II SMP Negeri 5 Jambi. A thesis. Universitas Jambi. Unpublished. Berliner, D. C., & Gage, N. L. (1984). Educational Psychology Third Edition. Boston: Standford University and University of Arizona. Dornyei, Z. (2003). Attitudes, Orientation and Motivations in Language Learning Advances in Theory, Research and Application. Language Learning. Vo. 52, Supplement 1. Gunelius, S. in https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-a-vlog-3476285. Accessed on March 20th 2017. Juhana (2012). Psychological factors that hinder students from speaking in English class (A case study in a Senior High School in South Tangerang, Banten, Indonesia), Journal of Education and Practice, 3 (12), 100-101 Karch, M. in https://www.lifewire.com/channel-youtube-1616635. Accessed on March 20th 2017. Philips, N., & Lindsay, G. (2006). Motivation in gifted students. High ability studies, 17 (1), 57-72. Su, Y.C. (2006). EFL teachers’ perception of English language policy at the elementary level in Taiwan, Educational Studies, (32) 3 Educational Technology and Society, 265-283. https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-a-vlog-3476285 https://www.lifewire.com/channel-youtube-1616635 International Journal of English Language and Teaching https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/IJoLTE 43 Volume 1 Issue 1, September 2017 Wu, W.V., Yen, L.L., Marek, M. (2011). Using Online EFL Interaction to Increase Confidence, Motivation and Ability., 14 (3), 127. International Journal of English Language and Teaching https://online-journal.unja.ac.id/index.php/IJoLTE 44 Volume 1 Issue 1, September 2017