The Impact of Intercultural Understanding on English Speaking

Proficiency of English Education Students in Universitas

Muhammadiyah Purwokerto
Intan Sofiana

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of Study

Learning English is not only about mastering the grammar

but also to communicate with people. In order to get effective
communication, language use should be appropriate culturally, as we
call sociolinguistic in linguistic field. Therefore the understanding of
intercultural is important for English learner because language is
part of culture. Language and culture are intertwined because language is
an outcome or result of a culture as a whole and also a vehicle by which
the other aspects of culture are shaped and communicate. (Puji &
Fatkhunaimah. 2014; 9)
Unfortunately English learner in Indonesia do not have much
concern on this thing. There are not many teachers teach english
based on intercultural communication in Indonesia. Moreover, inter-
cultural sensitivity is a skill learned through authentic interaction in an
intercultural context. Jia-Fen Wu (2016; 1). The aim of this study is to
examine the impact of intercultural understanding on English speaking
proficiency.

B. Research Questions
1. What is the relationship between intercultural understanding and
English speaking proficiency?
2. How is the impact of intercultural understanding on english speaking
proficiency of English Education students in Universitas
Muhammadiyah Purwokerto?
 CHAPTER II

THEORIES

A. English Speaking Proficiency

In this research English speaking proficiency is depenent variable. English

speaking proficiency is an ability of using language to communicate in English.
As the main function of language is to communicate, every English student should
have good speaking proficiency. the evidence showed that listening and reading
can improve speaking skill because reading can affect both fluency and accuracy
of expression in their speaking. (Derakhshan, Ali. Khalili, Atefah. Beheshti,
Fatima. 2016; 177). However students in Indonesia learn English as foreign
language, it makes them difficult to develop speaking skill as communication
function in English, since what they learn in classroom is different from real
life.There are many factors in developing students’ speaking ability. One of them
is cultural understanding. According to the research it says that one of the most
important factors about language is that it deals with social context and culture.
(Derakhshan, Ali. Khalili, Atefah. Beheshti, Fatima. 2016; 177).

B. Intercultural Understanding

In this research cultural understanding is independent variable. The

language itself can not be separated with the culture, because language is part of
culture. Intercultural understanding is an understanding of people and culture that
is different from ours in order to communicate well and construct a global
perspective. In this century, intercultural understanding is important as we live in
global world. The language learning process has correlation relationship with
cultural experiences. All humans cognitively process information but “cultures
differ with respect to the process ar used to deal with various situation”. Melvina
(2018; 26).
C. Relevant Studies

The tittle of this research is "The Impact of Intercultural Understanding on

English Speaking Proficiency of English Education Students in Universitas
Muhammadiyah Purwokerto". Regarding to this research, there are some relevant
studies as follows :

1. Sociolinguistic Factors in the Development of English Language

Proficiency Among Students in Malaysia

This research was conducted by Melvina from STKIP PGRI

Sumatera Barat. This research proposal was published in 2015. The
purpose of this research was to know how sociolinguistic factors could
develop English language proficiency among students in Malaysia. In
addition, the participants of this research were learners come from
different backgrounds and have different knowledge or proficiency of
English.
The researcher held this research according to participants' English
proficiency, participants' environment and culture differences. English
proficiency of participants are diverse based on those aspects.
Multicultural and multilingual diversity has brought different level of
English proficiency as a second language in Malaysia. It depends on
the need of the learners, the goals, native language proficiency and
prior knowledge of second language. The second aspect is
environment. It is including home support which means the
atmosphere that parents create at home regarding language use, school
 environment refers to peers group, teacher and learning process, and
the last is what kind of society that students interact with. Those
environment aspects influence the difference of English proficiency.
Since Malaysia is multicultural, it also affects on determining English
language proficiency among Malaysian students.
According to the research above, the writer concluded that
sociolinguistic is one of aspect of language learning that has direct
influence on students' proficiency level. The diversity of contextual
factors that are close to the students make various English proficiency
level of Malaysian students.

2. Impact of Foreign Language Proficiency and English Uses on

Intercultural Sensitivity
This journal was written by Jia-Fen Wu as a student of Applied
Foreign Language Department in Kao Yuan University in Taiwan. The
journal was published online on August 2016. The main purpose of the
research was to examine the impact of English uses and English
proficiency on intercultural sensitivity among 292 Taiwanese
participants. The participants are 292 Taiwanese across three groups of
the participants (high, moderate and low proficiency of English uses).
This study used quantitative method to collect the data. The
questionnaires and intercultural sensitivity scale were used to obtain
the participants' responses. To measure the data the researcher used
four questions in questionare as follows 1) how frequently do you read
in English? 2) how frequently do you speak to people of different
ethnic groups in English? 3) how frequently do you chat with people of
different ethnic groups in English 4) how frequently do you write to
people of different ethnic groups in English?. In another hand
intercultural sensitivity was measured using 13 items of Chen and
Starosta's intercultural sensitivity scale. It consists interaction
confidence (4 items), interaction engagement and attentiveness (3
 items), respect for cultural differences (3 items) and interaction
enjoyment (3 items). Furthermore, the data is also collected from
TOEIC scores of participants.
The result of this study according to a two-way analysis of
variance show that there was a significant main effect for the level of
English frequency on inter-cultural sensitivity, whereas no significant
main effect for TOEIC scores on inter-cultural sensitivity was found.
Furthermore, results of a post hoc comparison across differential levels
of English use frequency indicated that high frequency English users.

3. A Study on the Relationship between English Language

Proficiency and Intercultural Communication Competence among
Arab Students in Malaysia

This study was carried out by Abdul Qahar Sarwari and

Mohammad Nubli Abdul Wahad. They are students of Center for
Modern Languages and Human Sciences, University Malaysia
Pahang. The goal of this research was to evaluated the relationship
between English language proficiency and intercultural
communication competence. Participants of this study were 108 Arab
students of a Malaysian public university.

The methodology that used by researchers was integrating the

quantitative and the qualitative data and approaches to answer their
research questions. The researchers collected the data using the
intercultural communication competence questionnaire (ICCQ) of
Matveev. There are 24 itmes with Likert Scale with five options per
item from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The ICCQ measures
intercultural communication with five domains that are interaction
engagement, interpersonal skills, team effectiveness, cultural
uncertainty, and cultural empathy. In addition to measure the level of
English proficiency, the researchers used the Language Experience
 and Proficiency Questionnaire of Marian, Blumenfeld and
Kaushanskaya.

Based on the results, the levels of English language proficiency and

intercultural communication competence of the participants had
significant relationship and influenced each other to be improved.
According to the findings, the participants who possessed a good level
of English language proficiency had more fruitful interactions and got
higher mean scores in intercultural communication competence. At
the same time, those participants who had more interactions have
gained some new and essential social skills and improved the levels of
their linguistic skills.

4. The Effects of Intercultural Learning on English Learning

Motivation among Students Studying Abroad

This journal was written by Yau TSAI from Fooyin University,

Taiwan. The aim of this study was to investigated whether and how
intercultural learning has an effort on English learning motivation
among students studying abroad. The participants of this research
were Asian students speaking English as foreign language (EFL) and
studying abroad in an English-speaking country.

Data collections were obtained using questionnaire survey. The

Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was applied in this study
to analyze the data collected from questionnaires. There are 50 total
questionares that used to measure the data. 95 % of the questionnaires
are responded well, in another hand five of these questionnaires were
invalid. The participants are Asian students from several country such
as China (27.5%), Japan (18.8%), Korea (23.2%), Taiwan (21.7) and
others (8.7%). It's divided into 3 categories of the length of residence.
The first category is those who have been less than 1 year (22.5%),
one to two years (29.7%), and the last more than 2 years (47.8%).
 The result of study found that intercultural learning significantly
affects English learning motivation which is beneficial for English
acquisition since they have to use English to communicate with native
speakers. It can be concluded, integrative motivation and instrumental
motivation can be considered two types of English learning
motivationn which are equally important to students studying abroad
for experiencing intercultural learning and benefiting from it in
English acquisition.

5. Broadening Minds: Exploring Intercultural Understanding in

Adult EFL Learners

This study was carried out by Ferney Cruz Arcila. This study's
purpose was to provided clear examples of how significant and
necessary it is to give foreign language learners the chance to become
aware of the foreign culture while they are becoming proficient in the
terget language (English). This research project took place at
Extension courses program of Universidad Pedagógica Nacional
(UPN). The UPN is a public university, which mostly offers
opportunities for people to become teachers in different areas of
education, such as Technology, Sciences and Humanities.

The participants were seven adult students of extension courses

program whose age ranged from 25 to 50 year old. Their English
proficiency level were intermediate. This research was qualitative
data. The data was gathered by using questionnaires, videotapes,
reflective journals and interviews. The questionnaires were open
ended questionnaire in order to obtain the information about
knowledge related to culture of English speaking countries and
participants' culture. Videotapes were used to capture verbal and non
verbal interactions of the entire group of participants. Participants
journals were evidence of personal impressions on intercultural issues
discussed based on each participants' perspectives. Interviews were
used to obtained the subjects of study, their perceptions of cultural
differences or similarities between English speaking countries and
Colombia, their reflections, their remarks, their needs and the like.

The result of the study shows that there is a significant relation

between a group of adults who use English as foreign language (EFL)
and cultural understanding of English speaking countries.
 CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

A. Research Method and Approach

This research aims to know the impact of intercultural

understanding on English speaking proficiency of English students. In
order to fulfill the objective of the research, the writer used qualitative
method and grounded theory approach. According to Denzin And
Lincoln, qualitative research focuses on interpretation of phenomena
in their natural settings to make sense in terms of the meanings people
bring to these settings. (1994)

This method was used because the purpose of this research is

appropriate with one of the purposes of qualitative research. There are
four purposes on qualitative method such as describing, interpreting,
verifying and evaluating. (Peshkin, 1993) The objective of this
research regards to two of those purposes, that is verifying and
evaluating. The researcher verified the validity of a theory that there is
a relation between intercultural study and English speaking
proficiency. In addition the researcher evaluated the impact of
intercultural understanding on English speaking proficiency.

While the approach that was used is grounded theory. Grounded

theory is a research strategy whose purpose is to generate theory from
the data. (Khan, Shahid ; 2014) Furthermore according to Charmaz
(2014) grounded theory is focused on inductive strategies for data
analysis. In this research, the writer wanted to generated the theory
about the impact of intercultural understanding on English speaking
proficiency of English students. Therefore this approach was used.
B. Population and Sample

The population of this study was English students. English students

in Indonesia learn English as foreign language. The ability of English
speaking proficiency among English students are various since it is
not implemented in daily Communication. Furthermore, the sample of
this research were English students of Universitas Muhammadiyah
Purwokerto. There were 10 students of English Education Department
from 3rd semester and 10 English students from 5th semester. All
participants have different background of cultures, however mostly
are Javanese. In addition they also have different English speaking
proficiency.

C. The Techniques of Collecting Data

‌This study used several data collection techniques. They were

observation, interview and questionnaires. According to Cambridge
dictionary, observation is an act of observing someone or something.
The writer used both direct and indirect observation in this study. The
direct observation held by observing speaking class of the participants.
In another hand, indirect observation held through observing video of
participants' English speaking. The researcher took a note about
participants' speaking based on speaking aspect measurements, such
as fluency, accuracy, pronunciation and vocabulary. This observation
of study is non participant observation.

The second technique was interviewing. Interview was held by

asking students about intercultural understanding and their interest of
that matter. The last technique of collecting data was giving
questionnaires. The questionnaires that were given to participants is
also about intercultural understanding according to the intercultural
sensitivity index (ISI). This questionnaire was designed by Olson and
Kroeger (2001). This questionnaire was used to measure the global
 competences and intercultural sensitivity of individuals. Furthermore
the components of this instrument are substantial knowledge,
perceptual understanding and intercultural communication.
(Brinkman, Dine & Wink, Marjan; 2007) There are 48 items that
should be answered by students using scales from 1 until 5, with
indicators as follows, 1 indicates " never describes me", 2 indicates
"seldom describes me", 3 indicates "describes me some of the time", 4
indicates "describes me well", and 5 indicates "describes me
extremely well".

D. The Technique of Analyzing Data

This study used thematic analysis method of qualitative research.

Thematic analysis method is a method for systematically identifying,
organising, and offering insight into, patterns of meaning (themes)
across a dataset. (Virginia & Victoria; 2012). The writer analyzed the
data of observation, interview and questionnaires thematically. There
were some steps of thematic analysis, the first was familiarization.
Second, the researcher highlighted the information or named coding.
The third step was generating themes. The code was divided into some
themes to be reviewed. In addition, the writer defined the themes and
get the conclusion of the analysis conclusion from those data
(observation, interview and questionnaire).
 CHAPTER IV

DISCUSSION

Intercultural Understanding is an understanding of different cultures in

order to communicate better with people who have different cultures. It is
important to avoid misinterpretation and communication misunderstanding. In
learning language, culture is also important to be learned or taught, since language
is part of culture. This study was conducted to measure the level of Intercultural
Understanding of English students Universitas Muhammadiyah Purwokerto in
learning language. English was the foreign language for most participants of this
study. They also have different cultures between each other. The intercultural
understanding is measured by using intercultural sensitivity index. The result from
this study shows that participants have high intercultural understanding. There are
some reasons for this, first it is one of their motivation in learning English because
they are English students. By learning the culture they can learn English easier.
Some of them also don't mind to be in environment that is different from them. It
proves that they have high intercultural understanding. The result of this research
shows that there is a significant correlation between intercultural understanding
and their learning English motivation. They who have high intercultural
understanding, they also has high motivation in learning English, even though it is
their foreign language.
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Wu, Cheryl. (2016). Impact of Foreign Language Proficiency and English Uses on
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