The Proficiency of Using English among TESL Students

INTRODUCTION. As we know, TESL students are known as the people who dedicate their life for English. My hypothesis will be the more they study about TESL, the more fluent are they. English as a second language (ESL) is the use or study of English by speakers with different native languages. It is also known as English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), English as an additional language (EAL), and English as a foreign language (EFL).TESL student have the ability to speak English fluently without any grammar mistakes and error. Besides that, they understand and speak conversational and academic/business/professional English very well. Many writers share the same opinion that learners are more motivated and stimulated in the foreign language classroom when authentic materials are used than the artificial non-authentic materials. Dialect are refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. Furthermore, TESL students tend to use their own dialect during the conversation. It is because they are influenced with the way of peoples talking and they try to adapt themselves to the accent. Sometimes parents are the reason why TESL students are able to speak fluently and adapt themselves in the environment because of the system that are been using in the house. The parents play a major role for their kids by having communication so that they will able to speak well. TESL students are known as the master of English. One of the questions that have been asked is Do you often use English among friends? mostly the students answers

Yes because English have been so important nowadays until it is known as the world language. Therefore we would like to conclude that the proficiency of TESL students increases in semester by semester.

LITERATURE REVIEW. Based on our topic The Proficiency of Using English among TESL Students, one of the questions that have been asked in our questionnaire which is Do you think that speaking in English will affect your mother tongue? we discovered that Dr. Paul Chamness Miller (PhD) in Foreign Language Education and Professor Hidehiro Endo quoted that students who maintain their native language while they learn English have greater success in becoming fluent in the English language. From the evidence mentioned above we can close that speaking in English does have some positive effect with the mother tongue or native language. Moreover, Professor J. Cummins (2000) mentioned that it is important that parents encouraged their children to speak in English like make some time to discuss with their children in English language, but at the same time give opportunity to read extensively in their own language or native language. He also quoted that "We should not assume that non-native speakers who have attained a high degree of fluency and accuracy in everyday spoken English have the corresponding academic language proficiency". This is another clear that supports our topic and one of the questions that have been asked in our questionnaire which is Did your family members give encourage in speaking English language? Furthermore, one of the questions in our questionnaire which is Do you consider any grammatical error while talking? we discovered that Clara Lee Brown (Ed.D) said that TESL students need is strong academic English that helps them perform successfully in content areas and a strong proficiency in oral English to become an

academic success as TESL students. Finally, the evidence above we can close that it is important for TESL students to consider any grammatical error while talking. In conclusion, above are all the evidences that support our topic which is The Proficiency of Using English among TESL Students.

RESEARCH DESIGN. First and foremost, before I elaborate more for this part let me explain about what is research design all about. According to WIKIPEDIA survey research often used to assess thoughts, opinions, and feelings. Survey research can be specific and limited, or it can have more global, widespread goals. Therefore, for this assessment, we have been asked to construct a set of questionnaire that containing 10 questions about the proficiency level of the TESL students. One of the purposes of this survey is to evaluate the ability of an individual to speak or perform in an acquired language which is English. Thus, in order to make sure that the hypothesis is correct, we did do some survey by distributing some questionnaires to TESL students for semester 2 section 4. We randomly select students by groups from semester 2 section 4. One of the questions that have been asked in the questionnaires is Do you think that by listening to English music will help improve your English proficiency and the most of the answer that we received is Yes. Song is a form of language that uses tones and rhythm as it is also the media of universal language. Language and music are known to have similar communicative modes, aurally and orally transmitted, containing phonetic, syntactic and semantic components, develop early in life as social interactive media.

This is the example of the questionnaire.

Name: Semester/Section: 1. Do you often use English language among friends? YES NO

2. Is there an ascent when you speak English? YES NO

3. Do you consider any grammatical error while talking? YES NO

4. Do you think that by listening to English music will help improve your English proficiency? YES NO

5. Did your family members give encourage in speaking English language? YES NO

6. Do you use English language when discussing with your lecturer? YES NO

7. Do you code switch while having a conversation? YES NO

8. Do you think that TESL students should speak English in everyday life? YES NO

9. Do you think that speaking in English will affect your mother tongue? YES NO

10. Do you really think that speaking in English shows that you are well educated person? YES NO

DATA ANALYSIS

English Proficiency among TESL students in KPTM KL

Family encouragement

Among lectures

English usage

Among friends

10

15

20

25

Grammatical Error

Yes No

Code Switch

Yes No

Accents

Yes No

Does listening english musics help improvement?

Yes No

Should TESL speak english everyday?

Yes No

Does speaking english affects mother tongue?

Yes No

Does speaking english shows you are educated?

Yes No

DISCUSSION The questionnaire forms regarding the Proficiency of Using English among students of KPTM KL were distributed to semester 1-4 students for Tesl students . The finding shows different result as different students have different opinion. The ten questions stated were basically evolved around the use of English language in their daily life. The first question was about whether they use English when speaking with their friends or not and 11 students out of 20 answered with a definite NO. The solid reason for this is that they are all Malays who used to speak in Malay language among their family themselves. Apart from that, they admit that they feel very awkward to speak English at home among family members as they grew in a Malay community. When they were asked about accent when speaking in English, the result also shows that most of the students answered with NO. However, this is not a negative attitude in speaking English as the respondents are obviously Malays and grew in this Malaysia country where all the people are mostly pure Malay with their own Malay accent. Besides that, the question also asked the respondents about considering any grammatical error while speaking and the result shows an equal answer where 10 answered with YES and other 10 students answered NO. When the students were asked about the reason to their answer, they stated that grammatical rules or order is not that vital in speaking rather in writing. While other students who answered with YES

stated that it is important as it shows our level of understanding the English language and it do shows their standards. Apart from that, the students were asked about whether listening to English music can help them to improve their English proficiency; all 20 of the respondents come to agree with YES. They said that through the lyrics of songs, they may learn many new words that sometimes they never came across and this will actually help them to improve their vocabulary. When they were asked about whether their families encourage them to speak in English, they were all agreed with YES too as realizing that English language is a need to the world especially for future use. Other than that, the question asked whether the respondents use English language when discussing with lecturers and most of them answered with YES. Only 1 out of 20 answered with NO and the respondent reason is that speaking English while discussing giving him a kind of limitation as he cannot speak English fluently. When asked about using code switch while speaking in English, 17 respondents admit that they code switch while having a conversation as they want the other party to understand clearly the messages that they conveyed especially when the other person is from a different race or having different accent. Apart from that, we also stated the question on whether TESL students should speak English in their everyday life and most of them totally agreed with YES as TESL students should get used speaking in English in order to sharpen their fluency in speaking for teaching in future. Other question stated in the questionnaire form was about will speaking English language affecting the mother tongue. 17 out of 20 respondents agreed with NO. The

reason to their answer is that they speak more in their mother tongue language compared to English language. In short, they used English suitable to their occasions and places. They also stated that the answer should be more to subjective as it is all depends on their own will of forgetting their mother tongue language. The last question was about whether speaking in English shows that they are well educated person or the other way; 12 answered with YES while the rest answered with NO. Some of them think that speaking in English is just like showing off that they are good enough or some people have negative judgments on people who speak in English a lot. While the respondents who agreed with YES stated that speaking in English do shows their standards as only educated people can speak in English fluently. To conclude, most of the respondents give positive feedback on proficiency of using English in their daily life. As English at present has become a vital need especially in education, people have been more open-minded to accept the pros and cons of practicing English language.

CONCLUSION Based on the research we had done, we found that level of proficiency in using English Language among Tesl student is average. That is because most of the students rarely used English language while they are having conversation especially among their friends. They tend to use malay language because they feel that it makes their conversation easier. That is because they were exposed with malay language since they were small. Parents actually play important role in ensuring their children to use English language to communicate. It does not meant they need to trained their children to speak in English everyday but at least their children tend to master this second language. As we know, it has its own disadvantage which if the usage of English language more than our native language, it will cause language death. This will affect our future generations which they will forget their own native language. As Tesl student, they actually need to use English language even in their simple conversation with their friends. They cannot use it only when to consult with the lecturers because this will help them to improve their proficiency as they actually taking this course which need to have deep knowledge in this language. Furthermore, this will help them to build self confidence. In conclusion, from my own point of view I can see that TESL students of KPTM KL have the courage to speak in English but it just they take it easily. Therefore, English department or college itself should provide more activity regarding ways to enhance speaking skills and the students need to dare in participating themselves. They actually afraid to do so because of low self esteem and always think what people will say if they

perform badly. So that, everybody should concern how to overcome this kind of problem in order to help KPTM producing the best students in future.

REFERENCE http://faculty.weber.edu/mtungmala/Hybrid4270/Articles/MeetNeeds.pdf http://esl.fis.edu/teachers/support/cummin.htm AL-KHAWARIZMI LIBRARY KPTM KUALA LUMPUR : Sociology Fourth Edition by John J. Macionis Sociology A Brief Introduction Second Edition by Alex Thio Sociology concepts and uses by Jonathan H.Turner The problem of sociology by David Lee and Howard Newby