English Language Teaching Problem in Indonesia : Students' Motivation

Indonesia is a country that has various local language, almost 700 local languages available in Indonesia. Most of Indonesian only know and familiar with two languages, Bahasa Indonesia and the local mother tongue. Because of having a wide variety of vernacular, mastering a new language is bothersome for Indonesians. Using of vernacular makes them accustom to using those language fluently (Dharma and Selvi, 2011). In the case of mother tongue, the learners learn it easily due to favorable environment. But learning a foreign language is quite challenging (Khan, 2011), the learners must have high exertion to learn English. Exertion itself cannot be abstained from obstacles for the learners. Thus, obstacles end up with having difficulties which cannot be avoided when learners start studying. One of the problem is Students' Motivation

According to Wlodwoski, motivation is the process that can be instigate behavior, give the direction of behavior, continue to allow behavior and to lead to choosing particular behavior (1985, p.2, as cited in Root, p.2, 1999). Motivation is the factor which always emphasizes students to learn. Gardner assumes that motivation is the factor which is identified as main factors affecting English Language Learning (1985, as cited in Wimolmas, p.904, 2012). Motivation in the ESL/EFL classroom is one of the most important factors. The main reason is that most of our students have low motivation to learn English. In addition to that, while most of them have a vague sense that whether English is useful and give the advantages for them or not. They do not strongly understand about the function of English. Thus, one of the most difficult aspects of becoming a teacher is learning how to motivate the students. Students who are not motivated will not learn effectively. They will not participate and some of them may even become passive. A student may be unmotivated for a variety of reasons: They may feel that they have no interest in the subject. To solve those problems, teacher better to give motivation to students. Motivation has a big role to maintain language learning success (Wimolmas, 2012). Hence, teachers need to understand and appreciate the role and importance of motivation in any learning. In addition, some motivations is needed for burning students’ spirit to students, teacher should tell to students several phrases that might increase students motivation. Based on Zazulak (2015) said that there are 5 top motivating sentences that can make students having spirit in learning English, the first is, always tell them that English will make students easier to communicate while abroad. The second, English is a global language which is used by people around the world. Third, tell students that learning English can facilitate communication with people different countries. Fourth, learning English improves career prospects. And the last one is making works life easily. Those sentences might be burning students’ motivation to learn English.  

Hence, in this case motivation must come from both of students and the teacher itself. Teachers or students must cooperate to build motivation maximally.