AN ANALYSIS OF SPEAKING FLUENCY LEVEL OF THE SIXTH SEMESTER

STUDENTS OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT IN

GANESHA UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION (UNDIKSHA)

H. Mairi1, Sudirman1, L. G. R. Budiarta2.

Jurusan Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris

Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha
Singaraja, Indonesia

e-mail: {hidayatmairi@gmail.com1, dirman_p@yahoo.co.id1,

Budiartarahayu@gmail.com2}@undiksha.ac.id

Abstrak

Tujuan dari penelitian ini yang pertama ialah untuk mendeskripsikan

kemampuan kefasihan mahasiswa Jurusan Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris dalam berbicara
dalam bahasa Inggris. Dan tujuan selanjutnya ialah untuk mengetahui faktor-faktor
ketidak-fasihan yang mereka hadapi. Jenis penelitian ini adalah penelitian deskriptif.
Populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah mahasiswa tingkat VI jurusan Pendidikan Bahasa
Inggris pada tahun 2015 Fakultas Bahasa dan Kesenian, Universitas Pendidikan
Ganesha. Sampel penelitian ini adalah 27 orang yang dipilih dengan teknik random
sampling. Data dikumpulkan melalui dua instrumen, yaitu tes bicara dan kuesioner.
Dalam tes berbicara, mahasiswa diberi lima topik untuk dipilih dan diminta untuk
berbicara selama dua menit untuk kemudian direkam. Selain itu, dalam kuesioner yang
digunakan ada 20 pertanyaan dengan 5 pilihan jawaban yang semua pertanyaan ini
termasuk 5 penyebab utama ketidakpatuhan: tugas yang sulit, tidak fokus, kurang
penekanan, kurangnya perencanaan dan persiapan, dan pengulangan tugas. Data
penelitian berupa transkrip dari rekaman berbicara singkat dan jawaban mahasiswa
terhadap kuesioner yang telah didistribusikan. Dari penelitian ini ditemukan bahwa
kemampuan bahasa atau tingkat kefasihan dalam berbicara mahasiswa dalam
berbahasa Inggris “baik” atau pada tingkat 3. Faktor penyebab ketidak-fasihan yang
dihadapi mahasiswa meliputi tingkat kesulitan, aspek makna fokus, dan batas waktu
pengerjaan aktivitas kefasihan berbicara.

Kata kunci: Kefasihan berbicara, tingkat kefasihan, ketidak-fasihan, factor ketidak-

fasihan.

Abstract

The aim of this research was to describe speaking fluency of English Language
Education Department students in speaking English, and to know the factors of disfluency
faced by them. This research was designed by using descriptive qualitative research. The
subjects of this research were the sixth-semester students of English Language
Education Department 2015, Faculty of Language and Arts, Ganesha University of
Education. The samples of this research were 27 students. The data were collected using
two instruments namely speaking test and questionnaire. In the speaking test, students
were given five topics to choose and they were asked to deliver a short talk for about 2
minutes that would be recorded. Meanwhile, in the questionnaire there were 20 questions
with 5 optional answers in which all the questions included 5 aspects of the main causes
of disfluency: the difficult task, not focused on the meaning, the absence of temp
speaking pressure, the lack of planning and preparation and unrepeated task. The data of
this research were the transcription of short talk recording and the students’ answers of
questionnaire which have been distributed. This research found that students fluency in
speaking English was good that was at level 3. The factors of disfluency faced by
students those were level of difficulty, meaning-focused aspect, and time limit of work of
speaking fluency.
Key words: fluency in speech, level of fluency, disfluency, factor of disfluency.
INTRODUCTION
English had been used by
many people in the world to
communicate with each other. In line
with this statement, Ramelan
(1992:2) stated that English as an
international language is used to
communicate, to strengthen and to
fasten relationship among all
countries in the world. Therefore,
English became one of the important
subjects applied by Indonesian
Government. In this case,
Indonesian Government intended to
make Indonesian students to learn
English as well as to use it to
communicate with others. Students
learning language is considered to
be successful if they can
communicate effectively by using
their second or fereign language.
Hadfiels (1996:3) said that speaking
is a kind of bridge for learners
between classroom and the world
outside. Thus, to build the good
bridge, the quality of speaking must
be enhanced by practicing speaking
fluency not only in the classroom
meanwhile outside of the classroom
to get the real context, situation and
sensation in communicating second
or English as a foreign language
Having good speaking
fluency makes someone's English
ability much better and sounds
smoother, more natural and more
impressive to listeners. It also
provides more effective
communication due to the absence
of speech disturbances. Koponen in
Luoma (2004:88) says that fluency is
about the flow, smoothness, the
rhythm of speech, the length of
utterances, the connection of ideas,
the absence of long pauses and
even the absence of disturbing
signals hesitation. In addition,
Stockdale (2009:1) states that
fluency occurs when someone
speaks a foreign language as a
native speaker with the fewest
pauses of silence, full pauses (ooo
and EMM), self-correction, false
starts and hesitations.
Based on pre-interview with
informant, English Language
Education Department of Ganesha
University of Education (UNDIKSHA)
speaking skills has been one among
some fundamental concerned skills
for the first and second year
students. It is demonstrated by the
fact that each student is required to
attend several speaking classes to
improve their speaking ability. There
are four courses designed to
improve the speaking ability of the
students. It is IEC (Intensive English
Course), Informal Speaking, Formal
Speaking, and Public Speaking.
Ideally, the existence of many
language courses offers students
more opportunities to have good
speaking skills. Also supporting by
the place of the University itself is
located in tourism areas that give the
students opportunities to practice
their speaking skill in real context,
situation and sensation while doing
the interaction with the native
speakers (foreigners). Therefore,
they should be improved their
language proficiency after following
those courses and having a great
opportunities to communicate with
some native speakers or foreigners.
However, based on the
preliminary observation which has
been done by the researcher,
regarding the speaking fluency
meant obtaining the naturalness and
the smoothness of the speech like
the native speaker, the researcher
found that there were still many
students lack on fluency in speaking.
The fact that while speaking, the
students’ speech was always filled
by many long pauses, a lot of
repetitions, errors, hesitations, and
also nervousness. The researcher
did some interview with lecturers
who handled the speaking courses
and the result showed that most of
the students were not good enough
in speaking.
In term of disfluency Shipley
and McAfee (2004:357) categorize
two kinds of disfluency that can be
the indicator to decide the fluency
levels; they are disfluency disorder
and normal disfluency. Disfluency
disorder is a kind of disfluency
category that is mainly related to the
weakness or problem of speaker’s
physical condition related to speech
production. The second category of
disfluency is normal or typical
disfluency. It is a kind of disfluency
which is not related to somebody’s
physical condition. As the matter of
fact, it is related to somebody’s
weakness in mastery on foreign
language. The example of this is the
disfluency found in English as
foreign language learner who does
not have any physical problem
related to speech production.
Acoording to Nation and
Newton (2009:154-155) there are
four problems that might faced by
the students during learning. The
first problem is lack of practice, this
makes them keep doing what they
think as difficult tasks. Because of
English is not their first language, so
the learners need to do frequent
practice. The practice can be done
through watching English movie,
having more time in the classrooms,
and any other individual practices.
The second problem is not meaning-
focus tasks, this kind of task may
lead them to lack of self-confidence
or anxiety and nervous. The third
problem is time pressure in doing the
speaking practice. The fourth
problem is lack of planning and
preparation in every practice, this
affect the learners’ readiness. Lastly,
doing non-repeated task is also the
problem. Therefore, the causes or
problems in disfluency that will used
by the researcher to measure the
disfluency level of English Language
Education Department students.
In this study, the researcher
intended to measure speaking
fluency on 6th semester students in
English Language Education
Department registered in academic
year 2015 Undiksha in order to find
the real situation or the fact related
to the level of speaking fluency and
the problem behind the disfluency
occurs during speaking activity. In
which based on the pre-observation
the students already learned
speaking since 1th semester and
completed some of these courses,
such as IEC (Intensive English
Course), Informal Speaking, Formal
Speaking, and Public Speaking.
Therefore, the researcher needed to
do this research to analyze the level
of fluency skills and the problems
behind this disfluency. Thus, the
researcher wanted to find the
indicators that indicate aspects and
levels of speaking fluency. Each
indicator was analyzed, so that the
detail was information used to
classify students' fluency at different
levels.
RESEARCH METHODS
In this study the researcher
gathered the data by conducted
speaking test in which students were
given five topics to choose and they
were asked to deliver a short talk for
about two minutes that would be
recorded and the questionare which
consisted of 20 questions to know
the causes of disfluency. The data of
this research were the transcription
of short talk recording and the
students’ answer of questionnaire
which have been distributed.
The objects of study were the
level of fluency of the students seen
by the speed of the word, the pause,
the disfluent syllable and the
average duration of the speech.
Factors of failure and problems of
disfluency by students who face the
difficulty of the task of speaking,
time, planning and preparation, and
the repetition of tasks to have a good
speaking fluency.
This study was conducted at
Ganesha University of Education
which is located on Jl. Dewi Sartika
Utara, Kec. Buleleng. Buleleng. The
subjects of the study were English
Language Education’s students in VI
semeters which registrated in 2015.
There were several steps followed in
analyzing the data. For the speaking
test there were three steps, those
are first, after collecting the data, the
researcher transcribed the audio
which had been recorded to make it
easy in analyzing the data. Second,
the researcher analyzed the
recorded by using four speaking
fluency measurements.
Those measurements were
Speech Rate (SR), Filled Pause
(FP), Disfluent Syllable (DS), and
Mean Length of Runs (MLR). The
data were analyzed by using
computer softwares which is
Microsoft Excel. Third, the level of
fluency was figured out for each
sample by using this mean score.
Thus the fluency level was
interpreted by using the scale of
speaking fluency which is adapted
from the Fluency Scale Ordinate
Corporation by Jong and Hulstjin
(2009). For the questionare, Likert
Scale was used. The responses
obtain from the students’
questionnaires were converted to
percentage. It isdone by using the
following formula:
P 100%
P = Percentage of the result
F = The total point of the answer
N = The total amount of the
sample
In order to get the mean score of the
data, the researcher again used
formula as follow:
Finally, the mean score is consulted
into five categories:
Point Explanation Average
Value Score
5 Strongly Agree 4.01 – 5.00
4 Agree 3.01 – 4.00
3 Neutral 2.01 – 3.00
2 Disagree 1.01 – 2.00
1 Strongly 0.00 – 1.00
Disagree
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The results of the data
analysis show that based on the
speaking fluency level found that the
average student speaking rate or
speech rate was 118. It means that
the average number of syllables
produced by the students were 118
syllables per minute. Compared to
the the normal amount of syllables
delivered per minute that was 162-
230 syllables. It means that the
students could cover 51% from the
normal amount syllables spoken by
native speaker per minute.
Therefore, the result found there
were 1 student in level 4
(Advanced), 17 students in level 3
(Good), 9 students in level 2
(Intermidiate).
There are two research
questions that should be answered.
The fisrt questions was the students’
speaking fluency level viewed from
speech rate, pause rate, disfluent
syllable, and mean length of runs
factors. In order to answered it, the
researcher used Stockdale’s theory
in speaking fluency scale and level
to analyze the data. Thus, the four
indicators were used to measure
fluency level. They are the speech
rate score, the pause rate score, the
disfluent syllables score, and the
mean length of runs. In order to
combine all score, 0 – 100 scoring
system was used in the
measurement. The measures are
described in the following figure:
Figure 1
Fluency Indicator Mean
Score
100
80
60
40
20
0 It was clearly described that
SRS PRS DSS MLR
The figure above showed
that most of the students had good
score on the disfluent syllable which
was 94. Besides, it was also seen
that most of the students had less
score on the pause rate compared to
the disfluent syllables score which
the pause rate score was 67.
Furthermore, most of the students
have less score on speech rate that
was 51. The least score that the
students got was 43 for the mean
lenght or runs. The data were
discribed below:
1. Speech Rate
Comparing the students mean
number of syllables found on
the research in which 118 per
minute to the normal mean
number of syllables was 162-
230 syllables, it was seen that
the students could covered
51% of the normal mean
number of the syllables. In
order to comply perfect
speaking fluency, the students
have to achieve a betterment
to cover the lack of 49%. After
all, the score of 51 on the
speech rate means that
generally the students had
good level of speech rate.
2. Pause Rate
The pause rate of the students
was 67%. It was not to deny
the fact that there were some
students who had fewer
pauses but better speaking
fluency level. Eventhough, if
we talk about the average
mean number of pause rate of
the students then it was
considered not good with
around 91. Generally, it could
be concluded that most
students were not really fluent
because of the highpause rate.
the pause rate exceeded 50%
of the total utterances.
Therefore, it was understood
that they did not reach the
common expectation on the
students’ ability which was
supposed to be good.
3. Disfluent Syllable
It was found that the students’
diffluent syllable rate was
actually low, it was only 6%. It
means that most students did
not find so many difficulties in
minimizing the diffluent
syllables involvement in their
speech. 6% of the normal
mean syllables per minute
meaning that the average
number of diffluent syllables
was 12 syllables. However, it
is acceptable for EFL learners.
4. Mean Lenght of Runs
The current mean length of
runs of the students on the
speaking test shows that the
average mean length of runs
 of those students’ speech was detail analysis will be described in
still low. It was around 43% of the following indicator analysis:
the total short talks delivered. Figure 3
It also indicated that some Disfluency Factors Mean Value
students have lower score and
some others have higher
score. Generally, the average Disfluency Factors
scorestill shows the 3.5
unexpected number. 3
2.5
2

Mean Value
After all four measures of 1.5
1
fluency in which maximum score is 0.5
100 the mean score is figured out 0
No Ti Pr Ta
then converted to Stockdale Dif
t m ep sk
Speaking Fluency Scale. Finally, the fic
M e ar Re
ult
result of the 27 samples analysis ea Pr ati prt
Ta
shows that the percentage of sk
ni es on iti
students who had Intermediate n… s… a… on
speaking fluency level was 33% or 9 Mean
2 1.9 3.1 3.1 3.2
students. Without any Value
disappointment, most students were
in level 3 or Good level was 63% or
17 of the students. Lastly, 4% is the 1. Task Difficulty
percentage of 1 student who had
Advanced speaking fluency level. This part of disfluency
The data is described in the factor includes several attached
following figure below: components such as the
background knowledge, lessons
Figure 2 learned, topics, and the
Students’ Fluency Level familiarity of the tasks to the
students’ knowledge. The
4%
students’ answer toward the
33% Disfluent statements about the task
difficulty had the result 2,0. The
Limited most of the students were
63% dissagreed about the
Intermed statements that the task was
iate diffucult which meant that the
task was not difficult for them.
The second questions that
needs to be answered on this 2. Meaning-focused
research is on the disfluency factors
viewed from typical disfluency The task of speaking test
perspective. This analysis involves should be meaning-focused if it
five main factors of disfluency from aims to assess the speaking
this point of view. The five main fluency ability of the students.
disfluency factors that Nation and When the task is not meaning-
Newton (2009) propose are: task focused, the activity will not help
difficulty, meaning focus aspect of the students’ improvement in
the task, existence of time pressure, achieving good speaking
planning and preparation, and the fluency. The students’ answers
task repetition. Therefore, more toward the the statements about
meaning focused had result 1.9
 that was Disagreed whcih
meant that not-meaning-
focused task as a part of
disfluency factor while meaning-
focused task has improved their
speaking fluency performance.
3. Time Pressure
As the speaking test
conducted in this research
applied the time pressure to the
students by limiting 10 minutes
preparation and 2 minutes of
short talk, it was believed that
the time pressure would
encourage the students to
perform better. In order to know
this factor influence the
students, four statements were
put in the questionnaire related
to the time pressure as a factor.
The students’ answers toward
the time pressure statements
showed that 3.1 which meant
that they were agreed. These
statements were about if the
students cannot perform better
without the existance of time
pressure. The speaking test
itself had adopted the time
pressure aspect by asking the
students to speak as much and
as fluent as possible for the 2
minutes duration which they
could pass it very well. Most of
the students agreed to consider
the third factor which is the
absence of time pressure to be
one of the disfluency factor.
4. Preparation and Planning
It is very well acknowledged that
planning and preparation is very
important to the students before
performing the task. The result
of the statement about
preparations and planning was
3,1 which meant that they were
agreed. The statements
regarding this disfluency factor
were questioning if the students
did not get enough time for
planning and preparation so that
they could perform well. Overall,
it can be understood that most
students had an agreement
about whether this factor had
caused their disfluency or not.
The result from the students
answer says that the students
believed that this factor did not
matter to them.
5. Task Repittation
The last factor considered to be
one of the most influencing
factors of disfluency was the
unrepeated tasks. The result of
the students’ answers toward
the task repitation was 3.2 that
meant they were agreed. . The
last three statements were
questioning if they never or did
not repeat the same task they
had ever done previously. The
answers for the last factor’s
statements commonly directed
to one conclusion in which they
agreed that this is not an
important factor to their
disfluency. This answers mean
that they disagree to put the
non-repeated task factor as a
disfluency factor.
CONCLUSION AND
SUGGESTION
This research was aimed to
identify speaking fluency level of
English Language Education
students in UNDIKSHA by taking
the aspects of language learning
and setting aside the account
natural physical causes. This
research was also aimed to
identify factors underlying the
disfluency of English Language
Education students in UNDIKSHA.
This research used two type
of instruments; speaking test and
questionnaire. After gathering
some data by using these
instruments, the analysis result
 found out that most of students
reached most of the students
reached level 3 or the level of good
fluency. Although, some students
had a higher level (Level 4 or
Advanced) and a lower level (Level
2 or Intermediate). Thus, the
improvement of fluency level for
students in Level 2 (intermediate)
was needed. The improvement for
students of level 3 to level 4 was
also necessary since the average
duration of students and break rate
considered as high. This situation
was the main issue of how
students were having difficulties in
reaching their fluency level.
Meanwhile, based on
observation done, disfluency
factors were because of having
difficult tasks, the pressure of
having limited absence allocation
and always focusing on the
meaning of what being talked
about during the conversation.
Therefore three methods need to
be implemented for helping the
disfluent students and increasing
the fluency level of students.
Those are creating easier task by
increasing the difficulties
progressively, providing
appropriate time pressure and
giving more chances to perform
meaning-focused tasks.
There are some suggestions given
based on this research. Those are;
1. For English Language
Education in UNDIKSHA, it is
suggested to develop more
materials that have
recommended methods
provided by some experts to
improve students’ fluency
because it is able to create
more meaning-focused
activity, progressive task
difficulty, and giving more
time for the students to plan
and prepare themselves.
This action will hopefully help
students achieve higher
speaking fluency level and
getting better in their
speaking ability.
2. For further research, it is
suggested to widen the
research discussion by taking
bigger scale as well as
improve and vary the
instruments and test setting
to enrich the study and
discussion related to the
topic which is students’
speaking fluency level.
3. At last, it is suggested for
further research to give more
indicators and fluency
assessment to vary the
research variables and give
more opportunity to extend
the range of analysis.
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Jong, Nivja de. and Jan Hulstijn.
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Lexical Aspects of Speech.
Amsterdam: Utrecht Institute of
Linguistics.
Luoma, Sari. 2004. Assessing
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Cambridge University Press.
Nation, I. S. P. and J. Newton. 2009.
Teaching ESL/EFL Listening
and Speaking. New York:
Routledge.
Ramelan. 1992. Introduction to
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Semarang: IKIP Semarang
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