The Influence of Personality Type on Speaking Achievement of Undergraduate Efl Students

There are a number of factors which influence the success of learning foreign language including students’ personality type. Thus, this study was aimed at finding out whether there is a significant correlation between students’ personality type and their speaking achievement of the fifth semester undergraduate EFL student at English Education Study Program of UIN Raden Fatah Palembang. The researcher used correlational study as the research method of this study.

The population of this research were 298 students of English Education Study Program at UIN Raden Fatah Palembang and 51 students were selected as the sample of this correlational research by using purposive sampling technique. In addition, quantitative method was employed by using Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) and students’ speaking score as the instrument. As the result, it was found that there was no correlation between students’ personality type and their speaking achievement, however the Pearson Product moment analysis revealed that there was no significant correlation between students’ personality type and speaking achievement. Since the coefficient correlation  is lower than r-table . Next, since there was no correlation between students’ personality type to their speaking achievement. So, the regression analysis was not needed.

Introduction

In this globalization era, English is becoming more and more well-known language in every corner of this world. It attracts people to learn, write and speak more with it. However, this language is learnt by people because of its two importance: to communicate; and  to create a greater opportunity for a job (Crystal, 2003). Firstly, the importance of English is that it is a means to communicate in the interconnected and interdependent world. Now, English has become an international language and be kind of a “must” language in many countries on the globe. Consequently, people realize the importance of this language for communication. Cook (2003) claims that English is now taught as the main foreign language in virtually every country, and used for business, education, and access to information by a substantial proportion of the world’s population. Furthermore, English had become an important language for those who want to have a better qualification to face the world. People with better English acquisition will have a bigger opportunity to get a better career in their future especially for those who has a good speaking. That is why speaking become the first thing appeared on someone’s performance. Moreover, speaking is regarded as the most crucial and central one as it enables people to establish successful communication in that language, which is often the main aim of learning any foreign language (Pathan, Aldersi, & Alsout, 2014).

As a matter of fact, communication takes place where there is a speech. Without speech people cannot communicate each other directly. The importance of speaking skill, hence is enormous for learners of any language. Without speech, a language is reduced to a mere script. Specifically, Mahdi (2014) states that psycholinguistics and socio-cultural factors are quite relevant to the education field in teaching and learning process. This research is focused on the students of university since English is not only prominent to be taught in senior high school but also in the university level in which the students are demanded to actively participate in teaching and learning environment. Therefore, it can be inferred that it is very important to improve the students’ fluency and accuracy of English communicative competence in relation to the recent English curriculum objectives in which the teaching of speaking skill then has become increasingly vital in the English as a foreign language context. Those are some factors why the researcher had this research on this level is because Comenius (as cited in Prasettiyo, 2015) highlights the range ages of maturity level is on 18-24 years old. In this range of ages, students were getting a lot of intelligences from their formal and informal education. They also had passed their puberty. So, even they had a bad on both personality and speaking ability, it still can be changed (Okeefe, 2015).

Lahaye (1994) emphasizes personality as the outward expression of oneself, which may or may not be the same as a person’s character, depending on how genuine that person is. It can be defined as an enduring and unique cluster of characteristics that may change in response to different situation (Schultz & Ellen, 2005).

There are seven major group theories about personality which exist in the psychology field such as Psychodynamic, Neo-Freudian, Learning (behaviorist), Humanistic, Biological, Trait (dispositional), and cultural perspective (Boundless, 2016).

Hans Eysenck was a personality theorist who focused on temperament—innate, genetically based personality differences. He believed personality is largely governed by biology, and he viewed people as having two specific personality dimensions: extroversion vs. introversion and neuroticism vs. stability. After collaborating with his wife and fellow personality theorist Sybil Eysenck, he added a third dimension to this model: psychoticism vs. socialization.

The Four Personality Types

Littaeur (1996) defines four personality temperaments as a proto-psychological theory that suggests there are four fundamental personality types, sanguine (optimistic and social), choleric (short-tempered or irritable), melancholic (analytical and quite), and phlegmatic (relaxed and peaceful). Most formulations include the possibility of mixtures of the types.

The sanguine temperament is traditional associated with air. People with this temperament tend to be lively, sociable, carefree, talkative, and pleasure-seeking. They may be warm-hearted and optimistic. They can make new friends easily, be imaginative, and artistic, and often have many ideas. They can be flighty and changeable; thus sanguine personalities may struggle with following tasks all the way through and be chronically late or forgetful.

The choleric temperament is traditionally associated with fire. People with this temperament tend to be egocentric and extroverted. They may be excitable, impulsive, and restless, with reserves of aggression, energy or passion, and try to instill that in others. They tend to be task-oriented people and are focused on getting a job done efficiently; their motto is usually “do it now. ”

This temperament is traditionally associated with the element of earth. People with this temperament may appear serious, introverted, cautious or even suspicious. They can become pre-occupied with the tragedy and cruelty in the world and are susceptible to depression and moodiness. They may be focused and conscientious. They often prefer to do things themselves, both to meet their own standards and because they are not inherently sociable.

The phlegmatic temperament is traditionally associated with water. People with this temperament may be inward and private, thoughtful, reasonable, calm, patient, caring, and tolerant. They tend to have a rich inner life, seek a quiet, peaceful atmosphere, and be content with themselves.

An ambivert is moderately comfortable with groups and social interaction, but also relishes time alone, away from a crowd (Bhargava, Semwal, Juyal, Vyas & Varsney, 2015). This in a condition when someone belongs to all types of personality. Because they naturally engage in a flexible pattern of talking and listening, ambiverts are likely to express sufficient assertiveness and enthusiasm to persuade and close a sale but are more inclined to listen to customers' interests and less vulnerable to appearing too excited or overconfident.

Research methodology

This study was undertaken on English Education Study Program at UIN Raden Fatah Palembang. The population consisted of 103 fifth semester students. The 51 students were involved in this study as the sample. The samples were chosen by using a purposive sampling technique. This study employed two kinds of instrument to collect the data. The Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI), which is specialized for adult learners by Eysenck (2011) was used to gain the data from the students. It aimed to find out which personality type the students belong to. The questionnaire consisted of 57 items of dichotomous questions. The students’ questionnaire was attached in appendix 1. Then, the speaking test also was done to the participant to obtained the students’ speaking achievement. The speaking test recorded by using voice recorder and a camera. The writer used three qualified raters to proceed the result of speaking record.

Students’ Personality Type

The total active students in the fifth semester of English Education Study Program were 103 students, 51 students participated in this study. The 57 items of Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) were used to investigate the participants’ personality type. The EPI was rated by a dichotomous scale (yes or no). In scoring the students’ personality, 24 items were calculated based on the answering key of measuring how much of an extrovert the participants are, 24 items were calculated to measure how neurotic they are. 9 items were not calculated because they used “lie scale”. The purpose of building the scale was to know if the students responded honest or not. If the students responded score 5 or more on this “lie scale” means that they are probably trying to make themselves look good and are not being totally honest in their responses.

Based on the table above, there are two additional personality types which categorized as an ambivert. They are Sanguine-Melancholic and Choleric- Melancholic. So, there are 23 students who are included as Choleric personality type, 2 students are included as Sanguine, 18 students are included as Melancholic, 3 students are included as Sanguine Melancholic, and 5 students are included as Choleric Melancholic. The total number of sample was 51 students. The minimum score of personality types obtained by the students was 22 while the maximum score was 40. The mean score gained was 28,94 with the standard deviation was 4,007.

The Result of Students’ Speaking Achievement

The result that the minimum score of speaking achievement obtained by the students was 11 while the maximum score was 18. The mean score gained was 15,33 with the standard deviation was 2,132.

The descriptive statistical analysis of speaking for the participant is shown in the table 11. The maximum score is 18,33 and the lowest score is 11,33. The mean of speaking scores for the participants is 15, 25. The standard deviation is 2, 13. The range of speaking achievement is 7. This mean score indicates that the level of speaking achievement of participants is Good.

For each category, 16 students had very good speaking achievement. 32 students had good speaking achievement. 3 students had average. no students had poor and very poor speaking.

The data are interpreted normal if p> 0,05. If p< 0,05, it means the data are not normal. Kolmogorov-smirnov was used to see the normality. The results of normality test are shown in table 12 indicated that the data from each variable were all normal and appropriate for data analysis with coefficients. 200 for personality and. 073 for speaking achievement

For linearity test, deviation of linearity was obtained. If probability is more than. 05, the two variables are linear. The result showed that, the deviation from linearity between personality type and speaking achievement was to sum up all the data were linear for each correlation Correlation between Students’ Personality Type and Their Speaking Achievement.

Based on Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient, the result indicated that the pattern of correlation between Personality and speaking achievement was negative. The correlation coefficient or the r-obtained  was lower than r-table. then the level of probability (p) significance (sig. 2-tailed) was.  It means that was higher than.  Thus, there was no significant correlation between the students’ personality type and their speaking achievement.

This section presents interpretations of the study based on the result of the data analysis to answer the aims of this study; the correlation between students’ personality type and their speaking achievement,  the contribution from students’ personality to their speaking achievement, the best predictor of personality type of speaking achievement. In order to strengthen the value of this study the interpretations are made based on the result of data analysis. According to the findings, there was no significant correlation between personality type and speaking achievement. Also, because there is no correlation between students’ personality type and their speaking achievement of fifth semester students on English Education Study Program of UIN Raden Fatah Palembang, the second and third research problems cannot be investigated.

Based on the result of Pearson Product Moment correlation, it was found that there was no significant correlation between personality and speaking achievement of undergraduate EFL students of UIN Raden Fatah Palembang (r-. 190). It means that personality had no relation to their performance in speaking achievement.

Conclusions

There are three conclusions drawn in this study based on the findings and interpretations. First, the findings presented in Chapter 4 have showed as the result that there is no correlation between student’s personality type and their speaking achievement, also the Pearson Product Moment analysis revealed that there is no significant correlation between student’s personality type and their speaking achievement. The number of coefficient correlation is. 217 which is lower than r-table . So, it can be conclude that even though the correlation between students’ personality type and their speaking achievement does not exist.

Second, because of the correlation does not exist between students’ personality type and their speaking achievement. The researcher could not continue this study to the second research problem. So, it is worth saying that students’ personality type do not give any influence to their speaking achievement.

Third, based on the research findings, the best predictor of speaking achievement for the fifth semester students of English Education Study Program at UIN Raden Fatah Palembang could not be found because there is no correlation and contribution between students’ personality type and their speaking achievement. But, as the additional information, due to the result of Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) most of the students in the sample of population were choleric.

Based on the conclusions above, suggestions in this study were provided for the students, lecturers, and other researchers who are interested in the future research. First, to the students, since the personality types are important for themselves, they have to be aware and explore more on their own personality type so they can strengthen their strangeness in many aspects of their life.

Second, to the lecturers, especially in English Education Study Program. It is suggested that all the lecturers need to consider the types of personality of students English Education Study Program in developing syllabus, teaching material, teaching method and evaluation. Due to this fact, since choleric mostly contributed to the students of English Education Study Program of UIN Raden Fatah Palembang, it is suggested that the lecturers should give more attention to the students who are phlegmatic and melancholic. Then, personality features should be taken into consideration for the control of speaking achievement.

Finally, for future researchers who have interest in this subject, personality type is a broad area, so there are possibilities to correlate it with other variables since there are still many unexplained factors that can give contribution for students’ speaking achievement. Then, the writer suggests other future researcher to manage the efficient time when they collect the data, find the appropriate questionnaire which is related to their research problems, and find the right place and time to record students’ speaking achievement in order to prevent misinterpretation when answering their research problems.