JOURNAL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING & LEARNING Vol.2 No. 2 July 2017 ABSTRACT The purpose of the study is to discover the role of teacher and peer in helping the students orally participate in an EFL classroom. I applied a three-month qualitative case study on 24 first-year university students. I employed observation, open-ended questionnaire, and in-depth interview to collect data. Further, I applied inductive analysis to decode the data. The results of the study revealed that first, the teacher played an important role to help the students orally participate in both class and group discussions through the inquiries provided during the class discussion, and feedbacks given after the group discussions. Second, results of the study indicated that peers also significantly contributed to motivating the lower-achieving students to improve their oral partici- pation, particularly in group discussions. In this circumstance, the data revealed that the students showed learning enthusiasm which helped creating a positive learning athmosphere in which this positive learning athmosphere can be perceived when they motivated one another through feed- backs given to solve their difficulties finding appropriate English terms and pronounciation, arranging their sentence structure, and developing their ideas. In addition, the students moti- vated one another through fun activities such as talking about movie quotes, and words of encouragement. In short, both teacher and peer helped encouraging the students to orally par- ticipate in both class and group discussions. Keywords: students’ oral participation; the role of teacher; the role of peer INTRODUCTION The article reports a qualitative case study that investigated the role of teacher and peer in helping students orally participate in an EFL speaking class. In particu- The Role of Teacher And Peer in Helping the Students Orally Participate in An EFL Classroom Triubaida Maya Ardianti was born in Blora, 16 Ju ly 1990. Currently a lec tu rer in En glish Diploma Program, Fac u lty of Vocational Edu cation, Universitas Airlan gga, Su rabay a. Her researc h interests in clu de sec- on d langu age acquisition, teachin g and learn- ing English as social practic es, an d learnin g motiv a tion . 38-53 39 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Learning Vol.2 No.2 July 2017 lar, the present study observed the dynamics of the students’ oral participation throughout three month-qualitative case study in a class where the theory of socio-constructivism by Vygotsky (1978) was applied in the teachinga and learning process. Particularly in the present study, students were en- couraged to orally participate in both class and group discussions. The teacher gave the students freedom to communicate with their peers about their diffi- culties orally participating in the discussions within the framework of Zone Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1978; Lake, 2012) where the high-achiev- ing students helped the lower achieving the stu- dents. Further, the teacher provided a series of so- cial practices within the framework of Guided Par- ticipation (Rogoff, 1990) where students socially interacted with their peers and teacher in class and group discussion in which the teacher guided them to comprehend the materials better through in- quiries, and improve the students oral participa- tion by providing feedbacks after roleplays. In the end, this finding is expected to give an insight to better understand the students’ oral participation development in the EFL setting. FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS’ ORAL PARTICIPATION In Communicative Language Learning, stu- dents are highly encouraged to be able to use sec- ond or foreign language to communicate with oth- ers (Littlewood, 1981; Richards & Rodgers, 2001) rather than merely mastering the language struc- tures. In this case, students are facilitated to be the center of learning who actively explore their po- tentials instead of merely receiving knowledge. Therefore, students are encouraged to produce meaningful sounds and interaction to achieve par- ticular social goals; for example, asking product prices when shopping, asking and giving opinion when negotiating, etc. Thus, students are supposed to actively engage themselves in oral classroom in- teractions. Particularly for EFL students who learn English as foreign language, their success in learn- ing English could be indicated through the use of the language in spoken and written modes fluently and accurately. Nevertheless, for EFL students who particularly learn English as foreign language, learning English in CLT context tends to be challenging due to sev- eral factors such as (1) self-confidence (Derakhsan et al., 2015; Cutrone, 2009); (2) motivation (Bahous et al., 2011; Diaz-Ducca, 2014; Huang et al., 2015; Kang, 2005; Khatibi & Zakeri, 2014; Leger & Storch, 2009); (3) lack of understanding on the materials due to language barriers (Ferris & Tagg, 1998; Rao, 2002); (4) personal characters (Chen, 2003; Gan et al., 2004); (5) diverse sociocultural backgrounds (Aghazadeh & Abedi, 2014; Chen, 2003; Ho & Crookall, 1995; Jones, 1999; Liu, 2002; Rao, 2002); and (6) teachers’ domination in learn- ing (Liu & Littlewood, 1997). In a particular situa- tion, those six factors were inextricably interwo- ven that they may affect the quality of students’ negotiating participation in class. Self confidence. Several studies discovered that self-confidence became a factor affecting the dy- namic of students’ oral participation during the teaching and learning process (AbuSeileek, 2012; Derakhsan et al., 2015; Cutrone, 2009; Mak, 2011; Zhang & Rahimi, 2014). Mak (2011) conducted a quantitative study on 313 freshmen in a university in Hong Kong with the purpose of investigating factos that may influence students’ anxiety in speak- ing in English in class. Mak employed a question- 40 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Learning Vol.2 No.2 July 2017 naire, semi-structured interview, and observation to collect data. By applying factor analysis to ana- lyze the data, Mak discovered five factors influenc- ing the students’ anxiety to interact orally in EFL speaking class; those were (1) the speaking anxiety and the fear of negative evaluation; (2) feeling uncomfortable when speaking to native speakers; (2) negative attitude to English class; (4) negative personal evaluation; and (5) the fear of failure in class. Besides, Mak explained that there were some additional factors that might contribute as the causes to the low self-confidence when speaking English particularly when speaking in front of the class without preparation, being corrected when speaking, and being not allowed to use their mother tongue at all in class. Cutrone (2009) reviewed literature on the Japa- nese EFL students’ anxiety in speaking English. Cutrone explained that lack of confidence was not the only factors causing anxiety to students. He elaborated that the lack of confidence was also caused by the students’ silence, the difference be- tween Japanese culture which tended to be passive and western culture which tended to be active, and the negative reaction from the teacher on the stu- dents’ arguments. In short, the context of the class plays a role in affecting the quality of the students’ negotiating participation. A study by Zhang and Rahimi (2014) about the students’ perception on the grammatical correction given by teachers when they were speaking. Zhang and Rahimi conducted a survey on 160 students consisting of 80 male and 80 female students in three language institutions in Iran. Zhang and Rahimi investigated the correlation between cor- rection done by teachers when students were speak- ing and the students’ anxiety levels. According to the data collected, Zhang and Rahimi elaborated that although students still had high anxiety levels when speaking English, they were aware of the importance of the grammatical correction given by the teacher when they were speaking after get- ting an explanation about the purposes and types of the correction given. Motivation. The second factor is motivation. A number of previous studies indicated that motiva- tion could be a highly influential factor in deter- mining the students’ success in learning English (Bahous et al., 2011; Diaz-Ducca, 2014; Huang et al., 2015; Kang, 2005; Khatibi & Zakeri, 2014; Lee, 2014; Leger & Storch, 2009; Murakami et al., 2012; Paker & Karaagac, 2015; Peng, 2012; Wang, 2014). A willingness to communicate is the most basic component for communication (Khatibi & Zakeri, 2014); thus, students should feel highly motivated to actively participate in oral class interaction (Huang et al, 2015). Peng (2012) conducted a case study on four EFL students in a university in China. Peng concluded that students’ motivation to par- ticipate in class negotiation is closely related to sev- eral factors such as: (1) linguistic knowledge includ- ing vocabulary and grammar, (2) interest in mate- rials discussed, and (3) class atmosphere. Besides, two studies indicated that the use of mother tongue can motivate students to be more active to orally participate in class. McMillan and Rivers (2011) conducting an online survey about various issues in English language teaching and learning on freshmen in 2008 revealed that mother tongue that used to be seen as an impediment for students to actively participate in oral discussion had become an effective support to help students improve their speaking skills if used appropriately and optimally. Paker and Karaagac (2015) who 41 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Learning Vol.2 No.2 July 2017 employed mixed-methods to investigate students’ motivation in orally participate in class discussion indicated that the use of mother tongue and En- glish learning are inextricably interwoven. Paker and Karaagac emphasized that mother tongue func- tions as “rapport building purposes, making the topic/ meaning clear (by giving examples, explain- ing, making extra explanations, etc.), explaining difficult concepts or ideas, etc” (p. 117). In short, mother tongue plays an important role to help stu- dents understand the teaching and learning pro- cess, so that they can feel more motivated to orally participate in class. Cultural backgrounds. The third factor influ- encing the quality of students’ negotiating partici- pation in class is culture. There are some cultural problems such as culture affecting personal char- acters (Chen, 2003; Gan et al, 2004), diverse cul- tural background (Aghazadeh & Abedi, 2014; Chen, 2003; Ho & Crookall, 1995; Jones, 1999; Lee, 2014; Liu, 2002; Rahimian, 2015; Rao, 2002), and teaching method which teachers tend to domi- nate (Liu & Littlewood, 1997) which cause students tend to be reluctant to orally participate in class. Aghazadeh and Abedi (2014) conducted a survey on freshmen in a university in Iran about their perception of oral participation in class. They indi- cated that there were some factors causing silence in class; those were (1) students’ personal charac- ters, (2) students’ perception to give logical opin- ion, and (3) teachers who tend to provide negative evaluation. Marlina (2009) conducting a case study on East Asian students in an EFL class in a univer- sity in Australia showed that most of East Asian students in that class learned the language passively in which it may be caused by the classical teaching of Confucius which obliged the students to obey superiors, in this case teachers. Marlina underlined that it made them reluctant to deliver their opin- ion to the class. Chen (2003) conducting a case study for a se- mester on two international students in an ESL class in a university in the United States of America indicated that their passiveness to participate in oral discussion might have been caused by (1) stu- dents’ diverse cultural backgrounds which de- manded them to adapt to the environment in which this process made the students tend to feel uncomfortable in conveying their thoughts, and (2) students’ personal characters which tend to be quiet. In summary, cultural issues are inextricably intertwined with English teaching and learning in which they plays a significant role to the quality of students’ negotiating participation in the class. THE ROLE OF TEACHER AND PEERS Teacher and peers play a significant role in the development of student’s language skills, includ- ing their oral participation quality in the class. In line with sociocultural theory by Vygotsky, teacher positively contributes to the quality of students’ oral participation by becoming (1) a lesson planner in- cluding determining teaching methods and strate- gies needed, (2) a guide through learning activities, critical inquiry, and fair opportunities to partici- pate in discussion, and (3) a monitor of teaching and learning process (Atas, 2015; Bejarano et al, 1997; Duff & Uchida, 1997; Khaliliaqdam, 2014; Kumazawa, 2013; Lee & Liang, 2012; Li, 2011; Salahshour & Hajizadeh, 2013; Sani, 2014). This argument is supported by Duff and Uchida (1997) who carried out an ethnographic study for six months on four EFL teachers. Duff and Uchida indicated that teacher must be aware of and un- 42 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Learning Vol.2 No.2 July 2017 derstand their roles in four aspects: (1) understand- ing each class’ complexities, (2) always updating her understanding of class situation, (3) strongly con- trolling the teaching and learning process in rela- tion with diverse students’ characters, and (4) al- ways holding contextual learning by integrating students’ diverse backgrounds. Consequently, Duff and Uchida elaborated that teacher could make students comfortable to participate in oral discus- sions. Beside teachers, peers play a vital role to the quality of students’ oral participation in EFL class. Several studies suggested that by giving students opportunities to interact orally with their peers, the students with lower level of speaking skill could learn moore from the students with higher level of speaking skill; therefore, at the same time, both parties could foster their speaking skills to be more ac cura te a nd f luen t (K hali liaq dam, 2014; Murakami et al, 2012; Murphey et al, 2014). Falout, Fukuda, and Fukada (2014) carried out a class ac- tion research on freshmen in Japan for four years. Murphey et al discovered that exchanging thoughts and ideas in discussing a topic could motivate stu- dents to engage in class discussion. In accordance with the study, Khaliliaqdam (2014) conducted a case study on 25 students of EFL speaking class in an Iranian language institution. Khaliliaqdam un- covered that Vygotsky’s theory of zone proximal development that emphasized the role of peers in teaching and learning process could be a potential alternative to improve students’ speaking ability. Khaliliaqdam added that students found a comfort to express their difficulties in speaking English and ask for help to solve them. Based on the previous studies, it can be con- cluded that the quality of students’ oral participa- tion in class is inseparable from the roles of teacher and peers. Practically, both aspects are inextricably interwoven. METHODS A qualitative case study was conducted on 24 first-year university students majoring in English Diploma Program. Among those 24 students, 10 were males, 14 were females. The class was deter- mined based on convenience. In this case, teacher could not choose their own students in the class. She was assigned to a certain EFL speaking class. The case study was conducted for three months or 11 meetings. The meeting was held once a week according to the university academic calendar. Open-ended questionnaire, observation, and in- depth interview were employed to collect data. In terms of the questionnaire, 5 item open-ended questionnaire was constructed by taking previous studies into consideration. Those five items con- sisted of students’ topic interest, anxiety, self-confi- dence, and their perceptions upon the role of teach- ers and peers in the classroom. In particular, this open-ended questionnaire was employed as a re- placement of interview in order to obtain particu- lar information from students in the eighth meet- ing. Then, an in-depth interview was conducted as a follow-up in response to the results of open-ended questionnaire in the eleventh meeting. In this cir- cumstance, a random sampling was drawn from one-fourth of the class for the interview to further investigate the role of teacher and peer in helping the students orally participate in the classroom. Further, Burns’ (1999) ref lective and analytical observation notes was used to decode data acquired from observation. In the end, patterns of the three 43 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Learning Vol.2 No.2 July 2017 data acquired from open-ended questionnaire, in- depth interview, and observation were searched to yield conclusive analyses about the role of teacher and peer in helping the students orally participate in an EFL classroom. FINDINGS The present study attempted to discover the role of teacher and peer in helping students orally par- ticipate in an EFL classroom. Data collected from open-ended questionnaire, in-depth interview, and observation yield a pattern that describes the role of teacher and peer regarding the students’ moti- vation to orally participate in the class. In particu- lar, the description of the results of the study is broken down into two sub-topics including (1) so- cial context of the classroom, and (2) evaluation of student learning. Social context of the classroom. In general, the students were chatty when they were allowed to speak in their native languages. The class would be very noisy talking about their private lives. But, things were different when they had to interact in English. At the beginning of the course, the stu- dents tended to be shy to participate in a class oral- discussion. In this case, class discussion was volun- tary. Many students tended to be silent through- out the discussion. When being asked to introduce themselves, all students kept their introduction short. They hardly interacted with their peers, and kept silent after fulfilling the task. As the time went by, a few particular students were actively orally par- ticipating in the discussion; whereas, others were quiet. Five of them were females, and two of them were males. Six of them, five females and one male, always sat in the front rows; and one of them which was male always sat down in the back. Throughout the eleven meetings, these seven students were the only students who consistently participate orally in the class discussion. The rest of them orally partici- pated in the class discussion once a while, but mostly they were passive. When discussing the materials, the teacher in- quired them to help them understand the materi- als. Only the students sitting in the front rows and one male student sitting in the back actively an- swered the questions; whereas, others were quiet. For encouraging these quiet students, the teacher pointed a student sitting in the back, and inquired her to provide an opinion regarding the topic which was being discussed. Surprisingly, the student was able to deliver an opinion fluently. We may take a look at the following excerpt. (All names are pseudonyms) Teacher : Melia, what is your favorite thing? Melia : I love watching movies. I usually download the movie, or watch the movies in the cinema. Or, I get them from my friend. Discovering this good news, the teacher pointed another student next to her, and asked her the same question. However, this student performed di fferentl y. S he s aid , “uh uh uh. ..., I love......cooking, Ma’am.” in a soft voice and ner- vous gesture. Then, the teacher asked another stu- dent next to her with the same questions. This stu- dent was answering with very softer voice that her friends and the teacher barely heard what she was talking about. In short, throughout eleven meet- ings, this pattern repeats. Most of the students sit- ting on the back tended to be quiet, whereas, the students sitting in the front rows tended to be ac- tively participating in the class discussion. Doing roleplays were obligatory for each student 44 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Learning Vol.2 No.2 July 2017 in every meeting. However, at the first three meet- ings, instead of doing roleplays, the students had to demonstrate their oral skills individually such as introducing themselves, talking about their daily activities and favorite things. Since introduction is basic, most of them did well. Nevertheless, they kept their introduction short. Secondly, when talk- ing about their daily activities and favorite things, the students still tended to keep their monologue short. They ran out of ideas, and many of them spoke softly with many grammatical and pronoun- ciation errors. Starting from the second and third meetings, there were some particular students that showed better speaking skills than the others, and some particular students whose speaking skill was the lowest of all. Then, throughout the next two meetings, the difference was getting visible. The students with better speaking skill could speak English fluently. Even though they were still dealing with grammatical errors, they did not have any problems with their pronunciation, vocabulary choice, and sentence structure. These students were also the ones that consistently participated orally in the class discussion although they sometimes mixed English with their native language when expressing ideas. We may take a look at the follow- ing excerpt. (All names are pseudonyms) Rendi : Ma’am, what is shredded? Teacher: Anyone knows about it? Mila: Slicing in thin sizes? Rendi: Mengiris? Teacher: What about the others? Do you agree? Or do you have different opinion? Some students: I think mengiris. Zaki: Slicing in a very thiin size. Teacher: What is the term in Bahasa Indonesia? (The students seemed thinking about it, thus the class was quiet.) Teacher: Rosa (pseudonym), have an idea? Rosa: No, Ma’am. Dosen : Others? (The students shook their heads.) Teacher: What is the appropriate term in Indonesia for slicing very thin? Talita&Mirna: Mencincang? Despite using mixed language when expressing their ideas in the class discussion, they perfomed roleplays very well. Beside fulfilling what should be in the roleplays, these students also added a sce- nario and highlighted the expressions according to the contexts which they presented. For instance, when talking jobs, the students set a scenario in which they accidentally met in front of hospital. One of them was a nurse who was getting a break in a cafe in front of the hospital; whereas, another one played a role as a truck driver who also went to a cafe. Then they accidentally had a small talk there. Whereas, the students with the lowest speaking skills tended to be passive during the class discus- sion, and they always sat in the back. One of them, named Rosa (pseudonym), hardly spoke. Once she spoke, she spoke incredibly soft, and mostly avoided answering the question by saying ‘no’. Another one, named Lala (pseudonym), had very little En- glish vocabulary. Thus, she always kept her speech short and monotone. Besides, there was another one, named Zaki (pesudonym), who was struggling to maintain a good sentence structure. In this cir- cumstance, his sentence structure was mostly messy, and he was confused to differentiate which one is subject, predicate, and object. Further, these three students seemed to be the most nervous during 45 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Learning Vol.2 No.2 July 2017 the speaking class compared to the other students. It was the students’ first semester in the college. Thus, the students just started to get familiar with one another. Starting from the sixth meeting, it was apparent that the students got used to one another, and they started to help one another to utter ideas fluently. The class dicussion was getting more dynamic that some students other than the seven active students started to participate orally once a while. As the students were allowed to use native language when they got confused finding the English terms, they also looked more relaxed delivering their opinion in the class discussion. Based on the data collected, the students looked the most comfortable and sounded the noisiest when they talked about their topic interests. They admitted that it was easier to participate orally in the class or group conversation if talking about their favorite subjects such as hobbies, sports, music, foods, etc. In particular, they felt the most relaxed to talk about familiar subjects. In general, the class was supportive. The more experienced students were willing to help the weak ones. For the convenience, they tended to mix L1 and L2 to convey clearer messages. We may take a look at the following excerpt. (All names are pseud- onyms) Kristo : Eh.. Dipanggang Bahasa Inggrise apa rek? Danu : Grilled. Kristo : Oh ya. ‘Grilled, please. Medium.’ Bener ora rek? Mario : Bener rek bener. Nek isa digawe luwih dawa luwih apik. Ben suwe percakapane. Kristo : Piye rek? ‘I want the chicken grilled. Medium.’ Ngono? Mario : Iya, kuwi rada dawa. Eh, koen mengko aja lali mendeskripsikan menune. Danu : Ohh.. Misal Kristo pesen grilled chicken, aku njelaske kui kaya apa ngono ya rek? Mario : Yoi. This kind of interaction frequently happened during the preparation stage before performing roleplays. However, the three students with the lowest speaking skills were seen to be passive in this stage. They frequently looked insecure and down to see their friends to be actively and cheer- fully communicating with their groups. The two females of the three were often in the same group. When they worked in pairs, they kept their con- versation short. On one hand, Lala frequently shied away from working harder to generate English expressions. When she faced difficulties generat- ing longer explanation, she directly cut her words. On the other hand, Rosa frequently gave up with the situation, so when Lala barely talked, she ended the conversation. Thus, both of them frequently looked desperate after doing roleplays. Zaki mingled with the other boys in the class. Even though he was the weakest in group for not being able to construct sentences in the correct order, his friends never complained, and kept the conversation flow well. Nevertheless, in the ques- tionnaire and interview, Zaki admitted that he was uncomfortable when working in groups because he felt being left out. In this case, he was shy to ask for help from his peers, and once he asked for help, his male friends did not sufficiently help him, and told him to just calm down. Beside those three students, the majority of the students looked comfortable interacting with their friends in L1 and L2. Although they had diverse levels of speaking skill, they always looked enthusi- astic and optimistic. Some of the students admit- 46 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Learning Vol.2 No.2 July 2017 ted in the interview that their peers gave them motivation to always improve their confidence to speak. We may take a look at the following inter- view excerpt with Lita (pseudonym). Teacher: What is the thing which helps you improve your confidence in speaking English? Lita: Speaking in front of my friends was not my thing. It was also hard to participate in the class discus- sion. So, when I did roleplays, I felt nervous. But, I find a friend with whom I interact the most comfort- ably. So, so far I enjoy the class very much. It showed that peers played an important role to motivate students orally participate in the class. Considering the data collected from three data sources, peers played an important roles in creat- ing a positive learning athmosphere by motivating one another through feedbacks, jokes, and words of encouragement. Nevertheless, the students in- stinctively grouped with the students they felt the most comfortable to interact with. Therefore, the groups always consisted of the same members. It did good for the students with high level of speak- ing abilities, but it did the worst for the students with the lowest level of speaking abilities had no chance to improve their oral participation due to their low confidence and limited abilities. After the sixth meeting, the teacher started to mix the students into different groups every week. In this circumstance, she paired the high-achiev- ing students with the low-achieving students for peer-tutoring. The class was getting chaotic because they had to adapt with different partners. In the end, this instruction yielded a good effect for the low-achieving ones. Based on the data collected from interview, they admitted that they felt less nervous when performing with the high-achieving ones. They elaborated that the high-achieving stu- dents tutored them patiently during the prepara- tion stage. From the observation, it was apparent that when performing roleplays, Lala who tended to avoid longer talk could speak a little bit longer and did not cut the sentences in the middle. Rosa who always gave up with the situation could elabo- rate her explanation and even make a scenario together with her high-achieving partner. In this case, she looked particularly more confident. Whereas, Zaki showed an improvement in the sen- tence structure, and started to get bigger portion in the roleplays. Despite challenges which the high-achieving stu- dents received, they admitted that they felt happy to help the low-achieving students improve their oral participation. We can take a look at the fol- lowing of interview with Eliza (all names were pseudonym). Teacher: What do you feel about changing partners ev- ery week? Eliza: At first, I did not feel comfortable with it. I think I could have done better with my original partner. I am paired once with Zaki. Hmm.. It is pretty good because I can help him a little. He doesn’t like to get help from others. Semacam gengsi. But, I told him to get help from other friends. He is a hardworking person. So, he can improve his participation in the conversation. The excerpt above showed that peers can moti- vate one another to get more confident and open to receive help from the others, and more coura- geous to apply the feedbacks to improve their oral participation. Evaluation of student learning. Secondly, in terms of evaluation of student learning, the stu- 47 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Learning Vol.2 No.2 July 2017 dents were highly encouraged to actively partici- pate in class discussions, and demonstrate roleplays based on a given topic. In the end of the course, the students are expected to be able to actively par- ticipate in interpersonal and transactional conver- sations. Throughout 11 meetings, the topics var- ied, and the students were provided by a teaching module, so that they could learn the materials in- cluding particular expressions used in certain top- ics before the class. During the meetings, the teacher usually provided supplementary materials to help the students attain broader knowledge of a given topic. The results of the study indicated that most of the students reluctantly read the materials before the class. Thus, the teacher had to allocate certain time to help them comprehend the materials be- fore doing roleplays. In this circumstance, the teacher facilitated them to get familiar with the topic through a class discussion. She provided a series of inquiries to scaffold the students’ under- standing, and a conversation modelling to give a clear picture of what the conversation was about. When doing the class discussion, only a few stu- dents consistently participated orally in the discus- sion. The other several students sitting in the front rows sometimes orally participated in the discus- sion, whereas, the students sitting in the back were mostly quiet. Nevertheless, some of the quiet stu- dents had a good speaking skills. From the ques- tionnaire and interview, it was discovered that they were not comfortable to speak in a big forum. Thus, they chose to be quiet. Based on the data acquired from the observation, these students participated well during roleplays in which the groups were much smaller, and it was obligatory for each stu- dent to participate in the roleplays. After doing the roleplays, the teacher always provided every student with feedbacks. These feed- backs aimed to inform the students their perfor- mance strengths and weaknesses, and advise them what to do to deal with their weaknesses. Through- out the eleven meetings, the students gradually applied the feedbacks to their oral participation even though each of them had different rates of improvement. Besides, some of them sometimes were stuck in their situations because they did not what and when to start applying the feedbacks. Responding this situation, the teacher paired these low-achieving students with the higher-achieving students for peer tutoring. Moreover, she person- ally approached the students to help them discover their barriers and a solution to solve the barriers. The data gathered from questionnaire and in- terview revealed a pattern that the students felt motivated through the inquiries, and the feedbacks given. We may take a look at the following excerpt taken from questionnaire. 1) The teacher’s been very helpful by speaking English every day in the class and asking our opibion about anything in English. 2) My teacher always gives us practice (speaking practice) that we have to do with our friends every week. So it very improve our English, firstly we still shy to speak in English but so far.....we can speak English more and more flu- ently. 3) Give a feedback but actually the teacher already good because she’s never getting mad and very patiently. And its really help me. Because be- fore I love the lesson, I love the lecture first. 4) Actually I admire her for being my lecture be- cause She always give me a feedback after we have an assessment and it’s really help me be- 48 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Learning Vol.2 No.2 July 2017 cause from the feedback I know on which point I’ve go wrong. 5) Actually, I love her teach us. Because after we practice our practice, she will give us feedback and make us to get more spirit to learn our speak- ing skill. 6) By giving a feedback for a good future. 7) My teacher always help me to improve my speak- ing skill. Every subject my teacher make con- versation for students. It’s great! Then, from an excerpt taken from the inter- view, the students also admitted that the teacher positively affected the development of oral partici- pation. Take a look at the following excerpt taken from the interview with Marina (pseudonym). Teacher: M enurut k amu kela s sp eaki ng i ni menyenangkan atau susah?(What do you think about this speaking class, is it fun or not?) Marina: Menyenangkan Ma’am. Saya menyukainya karena sering praktek dan dapat feedback setelahnya. (It is fun, Ma’am. I love it because we get to practice our speaking skill a lot, and get feed- backs after the practices.) Beside the teacher, based on the data collected indicated that the peers also contributed to moti- vating the students to improve their oral participa- tion in the class. We may take a look at the follow- ing excerpt taken from the questionnaire. 1) Really good, they say the correct answer and help me correct the wrong one. 2) Very helpful. Sometimes when my pronounce is wrong my friends comment and correct my pronounce. 3) Help by giving me the meaning of words. 4) Gives another sentence for me which is more right that mine. Helping translate a word that I don’t know. 5) My friends always help me to improve my speak- ing skill. They always talk to me if my speaking pronunciation is wrong. 6) Helping me how to pronoun word; give a feed- back. 7) Helpful. Because my friends and I always shar- ing about how to improve my speaking or my friend speaking. And, we always support each other. And, sometimes, my friends comment if I have wrong, they will correctly my pronunce. 8) (1) They give me a comment when I’ve wrong in pronoun something; (2) they show me the easiest way to have speaking with their way, sometimes they like to have a sharing. 9) (1) helping me about pronoun; (2) give a feed- back 10)Sometimes my friend talking with me in En- glish and it helps me to improve my English. 11)Honestly, we seldom speak English to teach each other unless it comes when we talk about movie we’ll mention our favorite quotes from the movie and suddenly we speak in English after that. 12)My friends is very help me too. Like they are always give me a motivation and supports me when I was doing a mistakes when I try to im- prove my speaking skills. It was strengthened by the data taken from an interview with Zaki and Maryam (pseudonyms) Teacher : Selama ini teman – teman membantu nggak dalam perkembangan partisipasi kamu di dalam kelas dan kelompok? (So far, did your friends help you improve your participation in class and group?) 49 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Learning Vol.2 No.2 July 2017 Maryam: Sangat membantu Ma’am. Mereka anaknya asik – asik. Kalau ada kesusahan saya minta bantuan mereka. Misalnya tidak tahu Bah asa Ingg risn ya a tau kala u ad a to pik pembicaraan yang lagi hot. (They are very help- ful, Ma’am. They are fun friends. I ask for their help whenever I find difficulties. For example, when I don’t know the English vocabulary or the hot-but- ton topics.) Teacher: Seri ng membant u a t au men eri ma bantuan? (Which one does you more frequently do? Giving help or receiving help?) Mary am: Sama – sama si h M a’a m. S ali ng membantu. Hehehehe (tersenyum) (Both of them, Ma’am. We help one another.) Teacher: Biasanya Zaki minta bantuan sama temen nggak? (Do you usually ask for your friends’ help?) Zaki: Iya Bu. (Yes, Ma’am) Teacher: Dibantuin? (Do they help you?) Zaki: Iya Bu. (Yes, Ma’am.) Teacher : Contoh bantuannya apa? (Give me ex- amples.) Zaki: Misalnya kalau tidak tahu kata – kata dalam bahasa Inggris. (For example, when I did not En- glish terms for particular words.) Teacher: Ada lagi? (Anything else?) Zaki: Mengoreksi kalimat saya yang salah. (Correct- ing my incorrect sentences.) Teacher: Struktur kalimat? Atau bagaimana? (The sentence structure or what?) Zaki: Ya, strukture kalimat. (Yes, the sentence struc- ture.) Both data sources were strengthened by data collected from observation. The three students with the lowest speaking skills seemed less nervous, and they showed an improvement in their group oral participation. The highest-achieving students consistently demonstrated a good oral participation in both class and group discussions, but they ob- tained an added value by helping their friends with lower speaking skills. The rest of the students in the middle rate of achievements continuously showed enthusiasm to improve their oral partici- pation in both class and group discussions. From the three data sources, it can be concluded that teacher and peer play an important role to help the students orally participate in the class for both class discussions and group performance. DISCUSSIONS According to the findings, the progress of stu- dents’ oral participation throughout the three- month qualitative case study could be influenced by some factors such as (1) personal characters (Chen, 2003; Gan et al., 2004), in this case being passive and quiet during class discussions, (2) anxi- ety (Cutrone, 2009), (3) self-confidence (Derakhsan et al., 2015; Cutrone, 2009); and (4) motivation (Bahous et al., 2011; Diaz-Ducca, 2014; Huang et al., 2015; Kang, 2005; Khatibi & Zakeri, 2014; Leger & Storch, 2009), particularly when teacher and peers were involved. By taking all aspects into account, students dem- onstrating active oral participation and students demonstrating less active oral participation may yield a causal relationship in terms of oral partici- pation in the classroom. In this case, students pos- sessing quiet personality tended to be passive dur- ing class discussions, but some of them were active during group roleplays. It showed that they became more motivated to participate orally in group roleplays because they would get certain feedback 50 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Learning Vol.2 No.2 July 2017 on their oral performance. That evidence showed that scaffolding through teacher’s feedback posi- tively motivated the students to actively participate in oral interactions (Bahaous et al., 2001; Diaz- Ducca, 2014). Besides, based on the data acquired from the obsrevation and interview, the students that stayed passive in both class and group interactions tended to have an issue of anxiety and low-confidence. First, they were not confident with their speaking ability, so they tended to be passive in class discus- sions. When they were forced to participate orally in the classroom, they were anxious demonstrat- ing their oral participation. For instance, when Rosa was asked by the teacher what her opinion was re- garding a certain topic, she directly say ‘I have no opinion’ to save herself from talking longer. An- other example was when Lala was asked, she said ‘uh..uh...uh...uh....’ and kept her response short because she was panic and could not generate longer response. In the next meetings, when their friends were getting more enthusiastic participat- ing orally in both group and oral discussions, they felt intimidated and more anxious to participate orally. In this circumstance, instead of joining dif- ferent groups, they tended to team up for group discussion for six weeks. Consequently, two of them kept struggling to show improvement every week. They tended to shut themselves down, and give up in every performance. The phenomenon showed that students’ personal characters contributed to the students’ progress in oral participation (Aghazadeh & Abedi, 2014; Chen, 2003; Cutrone, 2009; Gan et al., 2004). It was solely based the stu- dents’ choice to move forward or get stuck. Within the phenomena of students’ oral par- ticipation, teacher and peers played a significant role in providing a positive learning athmosphere for the students to foster their oral participation. On one hand, based on the socio-construstivism theory (Vygotsky, 1978), the teacher as the more experienced one became a lesson designer in choos- ing appropriate methods and strategies to be ap- plied in the classroom. In this circumstance, the teacher provided a set of social practices for the students to participate orally such as mini-lesson, class discussion, and group roleplays. Moreover, along with Vygotsky’s Zone Proximal Develop- ment, the teacher provided scaffolding through feedback after group roleplays to help the students reflect on their practices. It was also the teacher’s way to monitor the students’ progress in partici- pating orally in the classrooom (Atas, 2015; Bejarano et al, 1997; Duff & Uchida, 1997; Khaliliaqdam, 2014; Kumazawa, 2013; Lee & Liang, 2012; Li, 2011; Salahshour & Hajizadeh, 2013; Sani, 2014). On the other hand, among students, the more experienced ones helped the less experi- enced ones to solve problems in the process of par- ticipating orally in the classroom such as providing feedbacks on their peers’ performance, and inform- ing the accurate pronunciation of certain vocabu- lary. The students’ positive responses to help their peers cope with their problems could motivate them to actively involve themselves participate orally in the classroom (Murphey et al., 2014). Oral interaction throughout three-month quali- tative case study revealed the use of L1 in facilitat- ing the students grasp better understanding of the materials being discussed. In the obsrevation ex- cerpt, Bahasa Indonesia as the students’ mother tongue was frequently used between students to understand particular vocabulary. In this circum- stance, the use of L1 had shown positive contribu- 51 Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Learning Vol.2 No.2 July 2017 tion to the students’ learning process (Paker & Karagaagac, 2015; Rivers, 2011) because it provided comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985) for the stu- dents to get better understanding of the context being discussed. As a result of understanding the context, the students felt more confident to par- ticipate orally in the classroom. CONCLUSIONS In summary, students’ personal characters and feelings played a significant role in the progress of their oral participation in the classroom through- out the three-month qualitative case study. In this case, the role of teacher and peers was inextricably intertwined with the students’ oral participation in classroom. First, a teacher played a significant role as the more experienced one by providing a set of social practices for the students to demon- strate their knowledge (Atwell, 1998), giving feed- back on the students’ oral interaction as the way to monitor their learning progress (Atas, 2015; Bejarano et al, 1997; Duff & Uchida, 1997; Khaliliaqdam, 2014; Kumazawa, 2013; Lee & Liang, 2012; Li, 2011; Salahshour & Hajizadeh, 2013; Sani, 2014), and providing scaffolding by inquir- ing the students to monitor their understanding upon particular subjects (Vygotsky, 1978). 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