A correlational study between students’ anxiety, vocabulary mastery, and speaking skill of the eleventh grade students of sma negeri 1 kartasura in the academic year of 2011/2012

Oleh :
Yunita Puspita Sari - K2208053 - Fak. KIP

The objectives of the study are to determine the correlation between (1) students? anxiety and speaking skill; (2) vocabulary mastery and speaking skill; and (3) students? anxiety, vocabulary mastery and speaking skill. The study was carried out in April 2012 at SMA Negeri 1 Kartasura. The method used in this study was a correlation study. The population in this study was all the eleventh grade students of SMA Negeri 1 Kartasura which consist of nine classes. The total number of the students was 351 students. The sample was 40 students taken by cluster random sampling technique. The instruments in collecting the data were questionnaire and tests. The questionnaire was used to collect the data of students? anxiety; while the objective test was used to collect the data of vocabulary mastery; and the performance test was used to collect the data of speaking skill. The techniques which were used to analyze the data were Pearson Product Moment and Multiple Correlations. The results of this study show that (1) there is a negative correlation between students? anxiety and speaking skill (rx1y = -0. 680 > rt is 0.361); (2) there is a positive correlation between vocabulary mastery and speaking skill (rx2y = 0.527 > rt is 0.361); and (3) there is a correlation between students? anxiety, vocabulary mastery simultaneously and speaking skill (Ry.12 = 0.766 and F0 = 25- 644 > Ft = 3.28). Based on the results of the study, it is known that the first hypothesis saying that there is a negative correlation between students? anxiety and speaking skill is accepted. The second hypothesis saying that there is a positive correlation between vocabulary mastery and speaking skill is also accepted. Meanwhile, the third hypothesis saying that there is a correlation between students? anxiety, vocabulary mastery simultaneously and speaking skill of the eleventh grade students of SMA Negeri 1 Kartasura in the academic year of 2011/2012 is also accepted. The result of the research shows that anxiety and vocabulary mastery are important variables for speaking skill. Both anxiety and vocabulary mastery have significant contribution in speaking skill. Therefore, students? anxiety should be decreased and vocabulary mastery should be increased in improving speaking skill. They contribute to improve speaking skill although speaking skill doesn?t completely depend on the two variables.