199 The Impact of Structural Competence towards Speaking Competence of the Fourth Semester Students of English Department Muhammad Nafi Annury IAIN Walisongo Semarang Jl. Walisongo 3-5 Semarang nafiannury@gmail.com Abstract This paper tries to define any impact of structural competence towards speaking competence. In this research, the writer used descriptive co-relational method. It was used to describe whether there was an impact between two variables, i.e. structural competence (X) as independent variable and speaking competence (Y) as dependent variable. The subject of study was the fourth semester students of English department of Tarbiyah Faculty IAIN Walisongo Semarang. After the data had been analyzed, it was found that there was significant impact of structural competence especially in appropriateness. It helped students to arrange words into sentences that they utter. Keywords: Structural Competence, Speaking Competence Abstrak Makalah ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui apakah ada dampak kemampuan berbicara terhadap kemampuan struktur berbahasa. Pada penelitian ini, penulis mengunakan metode deskriptif korelasi. Hal tersebut digunakan untuk mengetahui apakah ada dampak antara kedua varibel tersebut; kompetensi struktur bahasa (X) sebagai variabel yang 200 tidak berpengaruh dan kompetensi berbicara (Y) sebagai variabel yang terpengaruh. Subyek penelitian adalah mahasiswa semester empat Progdi Tadris Bahasa Inggris Fakultas Pendidikan IAIN Walisongo Semarang. Setelah dianalisa, ditemukan bahwa ada dampak yang signifikan terhadap kompetensi stuktur berbahasa terutama pada ketepatan pada penyusunan tuturan. Hal tersebut membantu mahasiswa dalam merangkai kata untuk menyusun kalimat yang mereka tuturkan. Kata kunci: Kompetensi struktur berbahasa, Kompetensi berbicara Introduction English is an international language which used all over the world. Many people learn to master it because many aspects in modern life cannot be separated from English. Nowadays we can find everything is written in English. As one of the aspects of globalization, English is now considered more and more important. English is spoken throughout the world and in most of multilingual societies; it has been adopted as the official language of law, administration, commerce, and education. In nearly every country in the world, English is taught in school as the major second language (Gathered, 1996: VI) There are four skills in mastering English, they are speaking, listening, reading and writing. Speaking is considered primary (Finocchiaro, 1973:3) because people learn to speak their native language several years before they learn to read and to write it. People judge one‘s English competence through his speaking. If a student can speak English well, it indicates that he masters English. There are some elements of language such as vocabulary, structure, pronunciation, spelling, etc. Structure, as one of the elements of 201 English is very important in language teaching. It is the system of language (Byrne, 1979), how the language is organized and used in communication. We can understand the language if we know its structure. Some other time, the writer finds some students who understand structure, but in fact, they seem have difficulties in English especially in their speaking class. For instances: students still making mistakes on defining Present and Simple Past Tense. They often do this cause they are not realized when they have to change some activities which done in the past, therefore, they speak it in the Present Tense. It means that students knowledge of structural competence which they have do not support them much. Since structure is a fundamental in mastering English, and speaking is considered primary, the writer formulates a problem. The writer tries to define any impact of structural competence towards speaking competence of fourth semester students of English department of Tarbiyah Faculty IAIN Walisongo Semarang in the academic year of 2010/2011. Nature of structure As one of the elements of language, structure is very important learning, since it is the basic framework to master the production and comprehension of the typical sentences of the language. When people communicate with others, they may utter a word or some words to convey their ideas, thought or feelings. The words, which are form then, are called sentence. The sentence can be defined as a group of words joined together by grammatical agreement (relating device) and which, 202 not grammatically dependent upon any other groups, are complete in themselves (Fries, 1952:20). Quirk and Greenbaun (1976:12) stated that a sentence may alternatively be seen as compromising five units called of sentence; structure, i.e: subject, verb, complement, object, and adverbial abbreviated as S, V, C, O, A. a. Elements of Sentence The elements are simply explained below: 1. Subject is a noun or pronoun that comes before the verb in an ordinary affirmative sentence. It usually says (in an active sentence) who or what does the action that verb refers to. 2. Verb is word, which is used with a subject to form the basics of a clause. Most verbs refer to actions or states. 3. Object is a noun or pronoun that normally comes after the verb (in active sentence). There are two kind of object: a) Direct Object It refers to a person or thing affected by the action of the verb. b) Indirect Object It usually refers to a person who receives the direct object. 1) Adverbial is a group of words that does the same job as an adverb phrase or adverb clause. 2) Complement is a part of sentence that gives more information about subject (after be, seem and the same after verbs) or in some structures, about object (Swan: 1980). b. The Sentence Classification Sentence is divided according to their structure into class simple, compound and complex sentence. 203 1. Simple sentence A simple sentence is a group of words, which express a single independent thought or contains one independent clause only. Quirk and Greenbaun (1976: 191) divided simple sentence into four major syntactic classes, whose use correlates with different communicative functions: a) Statements are sentences in which the subject is always presented and generally precedes the verb, example: A student comes to the class. b) Questions are sentences marked one by one or more of these criteria: 1) The placing of the operator immediately in front of the subject, example: Does a student come to the class? 2) The initial positioning of an interrogative or wh- elements, example: Who comes to the class? 3) Rising intonation, example: A student comes to the class? c) Commands are sentences, which normally have no overt grammatical subject and whose; verb is in the imperative, example: Come on the class! d) Exclamations are sentences which have an initial phrase introduced by what or how, without inversion subject and operator; example: What a diligent student! 2. Compound sentence Compound sentence is a sentence that combined from two or more simple sentences (main clause) joined coordinately by 204 punctuation alone, by coordinate conjunctions or by conjunctive adverbs. a) Joined by punctuation alone John was sick; he did not come to school Main clause Main clause Punctuation b) Joined by coordinative conjunction; and, but, or. John was sick, but he came to school Main clause Main clause Coordinative conjunction c) Joined by conjunctive adverb; moreover, in addition, otherwise, however, nevertheless, therefore, etc. John was sick, however he came to school Main clause Main Clause Conjunctive adverb 3. Complex sentence A complex sentence is a sentence that consisting of one main clause and one or more subordinate clauses. For example: They watch the television whenever they like Main clause subordinate clause 205 4. Compound complex sentence Compound complex sentence is a sentence that consists of two or more main clauses and one more subordinate clauses. For example: since I had seen her the day before, I knew that he was unhappy, but I did not guess that he would give up this plan. Language skills Anyone who uses languages well has a number of different abilities. He/she may read books, write letters, speak on the telephone, listen to the radio, and so on. Generally, we can identify four major skills such as; listening, speaking, reading and writing (Hammer, 1978: 16). Those skills are classified into productive and receptive skills. Speaking and writing are productive skills and involve some kinds of production on the part of the language user. Listening and reading understanding belong to receptive skills and involve the language user is receiving written or spoken language. When two people carry out a conversation, they very often use a combination of skills, for example speaking and listening skills. As we know that speaking is a part of language skills which should be mastered by students. As stated in the 2006 national curriculum states that students should master the four language skills besides speaking, there are: listening, writing and reading. Therefore, English still becomes one of the compulsory subjects which have been afraid by students. Nature of communication When two people are in talking to each other, we can fairly be sure that are so far a certain reason. The reasons they may have are as follows: 206 a. They want to say something. ―Want‖ is used here in general way to suggest that speakers make definite decisions to address other people. Speaking may be forced upon them but we can call still say they feel the need to speak, otherwise they would keep silent. b. They have some comunicative purposes. Speakers say things because they want something to happen as a result of what they say. They may want to give information or express their ideas. They may decide to be rude or flatter, to agree communicative purpose, or succeed in conveying the message and the effect they want it to have. c. They select from their language store. Speakers have an infinitive capacity to create new sentences (especially if they are native speakers). In order to achieve their communicative purpose, they will select the language they think is appropriate for this purpose. d. They want to listen to ―something‖. Once again ―want‖ is used in general way. But the listeners in order to understand what they are listening to they must have some desire to do so. e. They are interested in the communicative purpose of what is being said. In general people listen to because they want to find out what the speaker is going to say – in other words what ideas they are conveying, and what effect they wish the communication to have. f. The process a variety of languages. Although the listener may have a good idea of what the speaker is going to say next in general terms, he has to be prepared to process a great variety of life grammar and vocabulary to understand exactly what is being said. As we see from the explanation above that oral communication is a two-way process between speaker and listener, involving the productive skill of speaking and receptive skill of understanding. Both 207 speaker and listener have a positive function to perform. The speaker has encode the message to be conveyed in appropriate language, while the listener has to decode (or interpret) the message. The message itself, in normal speech, usually contains a great deal of ―information‖ which is redundant. At the some other time, the listener is helped by prosodic feature, such as stress and intonation, which accompany the spoken utterances and form part of its meaning, hence, by facial and body movement. Oral production The main goal in teaching the productive skill of speaking is oral fluency that is the ability to express oneself intelligibility, reasonably, accurately and without undue hesitation. To attain this goal, the students will be brought from the stage where they merely imitate a model or respond to cues to the point where they can use the language to express their own ideas. Two complementary levels of training will therefore be required practice in the manipulation of the six elements of the language (principally the use of grammatical patterns and lexical terms) and practice in the expression of personal meaning. For the purpose the teacher cannot depend on written texts as basic for oral practice. Audio – visual aids, on the other hand, provide at all levels a powerful way of stimulating and developing oral ability without resource to the written language. Interdependence of the oral skills in communication Although in the class practice it is often necessary to concentrate at certain times developing one of the oral skills more than others, we 208 should not lose sight of the fact that oral comunication is two-ways process between speaker and listener. Thus, the speaker does not always imitate: he also responds to what he has heard, while the listener does not always remain silent: he is normally expected to make some sort of response. In classroom, therefore, appropriate provision has to be made to see that the two oral skills are integrated through situations, which permit and encourage authentic comunication. Intelligibility Intelligibility is usually defined in phonological sound such as /i:/ and /i/. At a level of basic understanding this aspect of intelligibility is unquestionably important but for the purpose of oral fluency, the terms need to be able to communicate effectively, the leaners need an adequate matery of grammar and vocabulary as well as phonology. In the arrea of grammar, learners should not be expected to master grammatical items simply because the exist in the language, but not only those essential for communication. Oral ability and motivation The development of oral ability is a good source of motivation for most learners who normally much concern to be able to speak and uderstand a foreign language. Satisfaction at being able to say a small number of sentences after a few lesson must be sustained by demonstrating to the students that they can say progresively more and more through the language as the course continues. Motivation can often be improved in large classes by placing greater emphasis on the receptive skill of listening. This has the additional advantage of getting the students 209 accustomed to understanding the language without reference to a written text as well as providing opportunities the meaningful repetition of known. Communicative competence From the baby onwards, everybody starts to learn how to communicate effectively and how to respond to other people‘s communications. Some people are better at communicating than others, but common people learn to communicate through language. One of the importance factors in context is the nature of the participants. The age, sex, social status and educational level of the speaker and listener, all affect that the mode of expression used. The next two factors are closely connected with each other. They are actual situation in which the language occurs and the kind of contact between the participants. The importance of the situation itself has always been recognized, and it is heavily emphasized in situational language courses, as well as in travelers; phrase books, where it becomes clear that the language varies according to whether one is shopping, or asking direction, or booking at the hotel and restaurant. Depending on the situation, the contact between the participants could either in speech or in writing, and at any points on the range of proximity, i.e. face to face, not face-to-face (two ways contact by telephone or correspondence), or one way contact (radio, TV, advertisement, notice). Simply by observing the choice of expression, one can postulate circumstances‘ in which one or the other would be likely to be written rather than spoken, used in one place rather than another. 210 Another parameter is the nature of the subject matter or topic or field of discourse. Its influence has been recognized for extreme of English Special Purposes such as technical usage, international aviation English, legal terminology, etc. Mod and purpose The way people communicate, as well as what they communicate is a matter of choice. It is restricted by the conventions of the speech community and the language itself. The external factors governing usage play their part in decreeing what is appropriate to different circumstances. A speaker is free to choose the mood as he wishes to convey as well as what he wants to say, he is constrained by the available resources of the language to fulfill his aims. That‘s why he must select not only a correct expression but one that is appropriate to his intentions. Regarding the function of communication, there are five general functions, which can usefully be isolated: personal. The speaker will be open to interpret as polite, aggressive, in a hurry, angry, pleased, etc., according to how he speaks Directive. The speaker attempts to control of influence the listener in some ways. Establishing relationship: the speakers establish and maintain contact the listener, often by speaking in ritualized way in which what is said is not as important as the fact that is said is not as important as information to the listener. Enjoyment: the speaker is using language for its own ‗sake‘ in poetry, rhymes, songs, etc (Corder, 1973:42-9). 211 Basic assumption Structure is the rule of language that enables speakers to express and organized their ideas through sentences or utterances or in the other words to carry out a communication with others. Therefore, students must understand the English structure in order to speak English. Without understanding its structure, it is very hard to get the meaning of the message conveyed. Research Method In this study the writer used descriptive co-relational method. It was used to describe whether there was impact between two variables, i.e. structural competence (X) as independent variable and speaking competence (Y) as dependent variable. The population of this research was the fourth semester students of English Department Tarbiyah Faculty IAIN Walisongo Semarang in the academic year of 2011/2012. The number of the population was sixty (60) students. The sample was taken from the all students of fourth semester because the total number of population was less than 100 subjects. In collecting the data of this research, the writer used test as the instrument. There were two kinds of tests. The structure oral test was used to measure students‘ competence in structure. The other test, oral test was used to collect data of students‘ speaking competence. The tests had been carried out at June 27th 2011 and June 29th 2011. 1. Structure test Structure test of 40 items, and the test contains multiple choice ones. The test is compiled from TOEFL. The consideration of 212 compiling it is that TOEFL, is a standardized test and admitted by people to measure one‘s English competence. Table 1 The content of structure test No Materials Item Numbers 1 Duration: since 1 2 Used to 2 3 Numerical order the 3, 4 4 Not only .............. but also 5 5 Causative have, make 6,7,8 6 Conditional type I 9, 10 7 Conditional type II 11 8 Had better 12 9 Paralel structure 13, 14 10 Anticipatory II 16 11 Uncountable noun 17 12 Countable noun 18 13 Degree comparison 19, 20 14 Adjective clause 22, 23 15 Would rather 24 16 Passive voice 25 17 Indirect question 26, 27 18 Infinitive to 28, 29 19 Verb + ing form 30, 31 20 Verbal modifier – ing form 32 21 Either; neither 33, 34 22 Clause 35, 36 23 Because 37 24 Reflexive pronoun 38 25 Because of 39 26 Adverb 40 2. Oral test Underhill (1987: 44-81) states there are twenty techniques to test speaking skill, i.e.: discussion oral report, learner-learner joint 213 discussion, role-play, interview, learner-learner description and recreation, form filling, making appropriate responses, questions answer, reading blank dialogue, using picture, giving description, i.e.: tell story or text from aural stimuli, reading aloud, translating/interpreting sentence completion from aural or written stimulus, sentence correction, sentence transformation and sentence repetition. From those techniques, the writer taught that using picture was effective and the most efficient to conduct the test. The components of language proficiency used are: a. Fluency It refers to one‘s ability to speak a language smoothly and easily b. Grammar It concerns with one‘s ability to organize words into sentences grammatically correct and to measure one‘s ability in applying grammatical rule as well. c. Vocabulary This item is designed to measure one‘s skill to remember or retake any words from his memory. d. Pronunciation It measures one‘s ability to pronounce English sounds correctly, includes its aspects like stress, intonation, etc. 3. Scoring systems a. Scoring of structure test The structure test consists of 40 items and all are multiple choice. The score of each number is one for the right one. So we can get a maximum score around 40. 214 b. Scoring of oral test As mentioned above that the test type used is using picure. There are seven pictures that must be retold by the students for about ten minutes. The components of language proficiency, grammar, vocabulary and pronounciation. The maximum score of each is 20, thus the total score is 80. Table 2 The Speaking Score No Language aspects Number of items Score 1 2 3 4 Fluency Grammar Vocabulary Pronounciation Total 5x4 5x4 5x4 5x4 20 20 20 20 80 To make it easier, the writer gives criteria for each components and it is applied by score 1 – 5. The criteria are mentioned below: 1. Fluency 5: speak smoothly and easily without any grooving 4 : speak with only accational hesitation 3: frequently have to think first before speak but enable to continue to speak 2: often stop speaking 1: say a word then stop speaking 2. Grammar 5: the sentences are all grammatically correct 4: making mistakes but not destroy the meaning 215 3: making mistakes and destroy the meaning 2: the utterances are difficult to be understood 1: the speech cannot be understood at all 3. Vocabulary 5: using appropriate vocabulary 4: using some innapropriate words 3: frequently using innapropriate 2: having very limited vocabulary 1: stop speaking at all 4. Pronounciation 5: Pronounce all words correctly 4: understandable although having certain accent 3: paying attention a lot of and making understanding 2: often making misprouncing 1: the speech is not understandable Discussion Students’ structural competence 1. Classical structural competence In measuring the classical structural competence is 50.4%. Thus the classical structural competence is 50.4%. It can be said that the students structural competence is fair. To know the precentage of students‘ competence, Arikunto (1991: 67) suggested five categories the students‘ competence as follows: a. Very good: if 81-100% the answer are correct b. Good: if 61-80% of the answer are correct 216 c. Fair: if 41-60% of the answer are correct d. Bad: if 21-60% of the answer are correct e. Very bad: if 0-20% of the answer are correct 2. Frequency distribution of structural competence The computation of frequency distribution of students‘ structural competence is as follows: Table 3 The Length of Class Interval Class interval Fi Xi Fixi 30 – 32 3 31 93 27 – 29 5 28 140 24 – 26 8 25 200 21 – 23 12 22 264 18 – 20 16 19 304 15 – 17 10 19 160 Des – 14 6 13 78 Total 50 157 1239 a. Determining the range of scores by substracting the highest score by lowest score. The range of students‘ structure is the highest score: 31, and the lowest score: 12. The range is 19. b. The number of class interval by using the formula 1 + 3.3 log 50. The result is 6.606. so the number of class internal is 7. c. Length of class interval is 2.71 In this case the length of class interval used is 3 217 3. Measure of central tendency of structural competence Table 4 The Structural Competence Mean Median Mode 20.31 20.125 19.3 a. The mean of students‘ structural competence has been compurized by frequency distribution is 20.31 b. Thus the median of structural competence is 20,125 c. Mode 19.3 Students’ speaking competence Table 5 The Students‘ speaking Competence Class interval Fi Yi Fi . Yi 72 – 74 3 73 219 69 – 71 9 70 630 66 – 68 13 67 871 63 – 65 3 64 192 60 – 62 15 61 915 57 – 59 5 58 290 54 – 56 5 55 275 51 – 53 5 52 260 Total 58 62 3652 1. Classical speaking competence is 80. 125% Thus the classical speaking competence is 80.125%. We can categorize that the classical speaking competence is good. It can be seen in Arikunto (1991: 67) in the previous pages. 218 2. Frequency distribution The computation of frequency distribution of students speaking competence is as follows: a. The range of students‘ speaking competence is, the highest score: 73, and the lowest score: 51. The range is 22. b. The number of class interva by using the formula: 1 + 3.3 log 50, the result is 6.606. So, the number of class interval is 7 c. The length of class interval (P) is 3.14 In this case the length of class interval used is 3 3. Measure of central tendency of speaking competence a. The mean is 59,868 Thus the main of speaking competence is 59.868 b. Median Thus, the median of speaking competence is 66,4 c. Mode The mode of speaking competence is 66.357 Product moment correlation The computation of product moment correlation coefficient is done after we find the values of N, ∑X, ∑Y, ∑X 2 , ∑Y 2 , and ∑ XY score. The result of computation using Pearson‘s formula is 0.990 Table 6 The Respondents Respondents R Y X^2 Y^2 XY R1 20 60 400 3600 1200 R2 16 56 256 3136 896 R3 19 59 361 3481 1121 219 R4 23 63 529 3969 1449 R5 19 59 361 3481 1121 R6 17 57 289 3249 969 R7 17 57 289 3249 969 R8 18 58 324 3364 1044 R9 18 58 324 3364 1044 R10 18 58 324 3364 1044 R11 22 62 484 3844 1364 R12 20 60 400 3600 1200 R13 24 64 576 4096 1536 R14 20 60 400 3600 1200 R15 19 59 361 3481 1121 R16 21 61 441 3721 1281 R17 27 67 729 4489 1809 R18 26 66 676 4356 1716 R19 24 64 576 4096 1536 R20 13 53 169 2809 689 R21 15 55 225 3025 825 R22 23 63 529 3969 1449 R23 19 59 361 3481 1121 R24 21 61 441 3721 1281 R25 15 55 225 3025 825 R26 26 66 676 4356 1716 R27 24 64 576 4096 1536 R28 20 60 400 3600 1200 R29 20 60 400 3600 1200 R30 20 60 400 3600 1200 R31 22 62 484 3844 1364 R32 21 61 441 3721 1281 R33 19 59 361 3481 1121 R34 21 61 441 3721 1281 R35 19 59 361 3481 1121 R36 23 63 529 3969 1449 R37 16 56 256 3136 896 R38 23 63 529 3969 1449 R39 18 58 324 3364 1044 R40 20 60 400 3600 1200 R41 19 59 361 3481 1121 220 R42 20 60 400 3600 1200 R43 20 60 400 3600 1200 R44 23 63 529 3969 1449 R45 26 66 676 4356 1716 R46 19 59 361 3481 1121 R47 22 62 484 3844 1364 R48 21 61 441 3721 1281 R49 18 58 324 3364 1044 R50 21 61 441 3721 1281 R51 22 62 484 3844 1364 R52 21 61 441 3721 1281 R53 21 61 441 3721 1281 R54 20 60 400 3600 1200 R55 24 64 576 4096 1536 R56 17 57 289 3249 969 R57 25 65 625 4225 1625 R58 20 60 400 3600 1200 R59 15 55 225 3025 825 R60 20 60 400 3600 1200 R61 20 60 400 3600 1200 1240 3680 25726 222526 75326 From this table above we know that the computation of product moment correlation coefficient is done after we find the values of N, ∑X, ∑Y, ∑X2, ∑Y2, and ∑ XY score. The result of computation using Pearson‘s formula is 0.0990. Conclusion The classical structural competence of fourth semester students of English Department of Tarbiyah Faculty IAIN Walisongo Semarang is 50.4%. It can be catgorized in fair level and the mean of structural competence is 20.125. The classical speaking competence of fourth semester students of English Department of Tarbiyah Faculty IAIN 221 Walisongo Semarang is 59.868% and it is good category. The mean of speaking competence is 63.76. It occurs because structure is a small element in speaking besides vocabulary, pronounciation, and fluency that work together. The result showed that there was significant impact of structural competence especially in appropriateness because they are able to arrange words into sentences when they utter. References Arikunto, Suharsimi. 2006. Prosedur Penelitian: Suatu Pendekatan Praktik. Jakarta: PT. Rineka Cipta. Byrne, James. 1973. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. New York: Addison Wesley Longman Corder, Dale. 1973. How To Develop Self-Confidence And Influence People by Public Speaking. London: Vermilion. Fries, CC. 1952. Speech Communication Made Simple. New York: Addison Wesley Longman. Guthered, Tim.1996. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harmer, Jeremy. 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Great Britain: Pearson Education Limited. Underhill, M. 1987. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. New York: Addison Wesley Longman. Swan. 1980. Writing English Language Tests. London: Longman. 222