Factors Which Affect Students’ Participation in Public Speaking Classes: Students’ Perceptions

Abstract

Participation is very important in language learning. This study aims to figure out what factors which affect students’ participation in speaking classes. This study is also important to be conducted since there are indeed many factors that influence students’ active participation. This paper reports the findings of a study of students’ participation in Public Speaking classes at the Faculty of Language and Literature in Satya Wacana Christian University. The participants were 9 students of the first academic year enrolled in Public Speaking class. Using in-depth interview as the technique of collecting the data, the study revealed 12 factors. The factors include cultural background of the students, communication habit in the family, students’ background knowledge, students’ self-confidence, students’ preparedness, students’ motivation, teachers’ role, the role of peers, topic, types of learning activities, class size, and the existence of grading rewards. The results indicate that teachers’ role become a dominant factor to support students’ active participation in speaking class. Due to the limitation of this study, further researches need to be done to explore the teachers’ strategies, in order to maximize students’ active participation in EFL classroom context. Based on the findings, implications are discussed and some possible changes to teaching practices suggested, which are hopefully applicable for the teachers and the students.