THE STUDENTS’ DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING ENGLISH ON EIGHTH GRADE IN SMPN 7 TARAKAN

Abstract

The objective of this research was to describe the students’ difficulties in learning English skills and components on eighth grade in SMPN 7 Tarakan in the Academic Year of 2019/2020.

The method of this research was case study. The samples were taken by using cluster sampling. The researcher took 48 students from 8 classes to conduct this research. The data of this research was collected questionnaire, field notes, and interview with the teachers and the students. The reseacher used methodology triangulation to check the validity of the data. The researcher used different method to get the some data. To get the validity of the data in this research, the research gave questionnaire, wrote field notes, and conducted interview. The result of the research showed 1) From questionnaire, the students’ difficulties in learning English skill mostly in speaking. The students hard to speak fluently. The students’ difficulties in learning English component mostly in pronunciation. The students usually can’t pronounce correctly because in English the way pronounce different with writing. 2) From field notes, the students’ difficulties mostly lack of vocabulary and they can’t pronounce correctly which make the students feel not interest and lazy in learning English. 3) From interview, the result showed that the teachers have much effort to teach English subject. The teachers guided the students when teaching learning process. The teachers always asked the students what the students think difficult and the teacher and the students learned together. The teachers also gave example how to pronounce the difficult word. The result of the interviews to the students showed that almost students have difficulties in learning English. The most students’ difficulty in learning English was the students lack of vocabulary so the students don’t understand the meaning when the students listened what teacher said, when the students spoke, when the students read the text, and when the students wrote their task.