The Influence of Social Factors on Students’ Achievement in Learning English

The research focused on the social factors which can influence the students’ achievement in learning English. Social factors are believed as the factors which play a crucial role in language learning and it can give impacts on foreign language learning. In this case, this research was conducted to investigate the impacts of social factors of parents’ economic level, Parents’ education level, parents’ occupation level and the environment on students’ achievement in learning English as a foreign language. The objects of the research were 10 students with special need and their parents at the eighth grade of SLB Negeri Pembina Aceh Tamiang. In conducting the data, the test and the questionnaire were designed. The twenty question items of the test were given to the students and an eighteen item of questionnaire were given to the parents’ to find out the require information on the social factors. In addition, in analyzing the data, all available data were processed by SPSS 17.0 for descriptive, correlation, ANOVA, and predictive analysis. Furthermore, based on the finding and the result of the research, the hypothesis (H0) of the research was rejected. In other word, there was no a significant correlation between social factors namely parents’ economic level, parents’ education level, parent’s occupation level and environment on students’ achievement in learning English. Therefore, it can be stated that the variety of the students’ scores were not influenced by the social factors discussed on this research in which it was probably influenced by other factors such as the personality of the students, the students’ disability, etc.


JL3T
Journal of Linguistics, Literature & Language Teaching JL3T. Vol. IV, No. 2 December 2018 54 English is one of the languages which play various functions in social life. As an international language, English almost has become the language which used widely all over the word and also used in many fields. In addition, this is the reason why many countries in the world try to improve English skills to be able to compete with another country whether in economic, science, technology, etc. Due to the problem, many countries has adapted and implemented English as the subject which taught in education fields.
Indonesia is one of those countries which teach English as the subject in every education levels.
Teaching and learning English are extremely a very challenging activity. There are many obstacles and difficulties that might be faced by both the language teachers and the students in teaching and learning English.
Therefore, the government has devised various ways to improve language learning and language teaching process such as designing language teaching curriculum officially, providing language teaching and learning media and also providing training of language teachers to improve their skill in language teaching. However, that is not the only problem that should be considered in language teaching. In other words, the most important problem is about the students as the language learners who probably will face some factors which influence the way and the process of how they learn English.
Students typically have different ability in learning English language.
In other words, there are some students who learn English language more quickly and easily than others. In this case, there are some factors which can influence the ability of students in learning English. The factors are classified into two factors which called as internal and external factors. The internal factor is the factor which comes from students itself such as age, personality, motivation, etc. Meanwhile, the external factor is the factor that comes from the particular learning situations such as environment, social background, etc.
According to Geesline &Long (as cited in Siregar, 2016) social variation or social factors are varieties of language use defined according to class, education, occupation, age, sex, etc. in other words, it means that some of social factors are gathered by the social background of student's parent.
As Onovughe (2012) states that a child from the high social class whose parents more often than not, use the English language for interaction will have little or no problem in communication with English in the classroom situation. In other words, a child from the low level social class whose parents do not ever use English language probably tends to be passive and less speak during the process of teaching and learning English in the classroom. In conclusion, it can be stated that parents' economic level, parents' education level, parents' occupation and environment significantly can influence the students in mastering English language.
SLB Negeri Pembina Aceh Tamiang is one of the schools that experienced the same situation. This school is one of student's special needs school wherein almost of the students has individual factor. Based on the observation, teachers of this school find that students' achievements are varied. This problem is caused by the students who come from various different social backgrounds. The parents of students are also come from various statuses and they tend to be varied in economic level, education level, occupation, etc. For instance, the students' achievement in English is varied as they are varied in social backgrounds. The mean scores of the students are often lower than completeness or standard value in which < 70 and at the same times it is >70. In other word, the students' achievements show that some of students from a certain backgrounds are more interested in learning English. Meanwhile, some of students from another certain backgrounds are not interested in learning English. In this case, it can be assumed that there is the correlation between parents' statues and student's achievement in learning English. However, at the same time, the students' achievements in learning English significantly are the same which means that the students' achievements are not varied as they are varied in social background.
Related to the explanations and the statements mentioned above, the researcher is interested in investigating the social factors such as how parents' economic level, parents' education level, parents' occupation and learning environment can influence students' achievement in learning English.
Therefore, the researcher is interested in doing the research entitled -The

A. English as a Foreign Language
There are many terms of teaching English which had been developed during a few decades. In addition, it happened because of the differences in using English language for certain functions and purposes. For instance, English has been the first language, the second language and also it has been the foreign language in some various different countries.
Lien and Chien (2009)  English as a new language in which it is only learnt in formal education as in schools but it is not used to make a communication process in the daily life.

Behaviorism
Behaviorism is a theory of language which believed that the environment was primarily responsible for human behavior. This theory also explained that learning and all other behaviors took place as a child responded to stimuli in the environment. For instance, when children respond an appropriate stimuli, positive associations will be made and habits will be formed. In other words, in this case, the environment exactly tends to influence the stimuli of children's emotion and action biologically. In addition, it is also stated by Parkay and Hassin (as cited in Orey, 2010) that Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable and measurable aspects of human behavior. In definingbehavior, behaviorist learning theories emphasize changes in behavior that result from stimulusresponseassociations made by the learner. Behavior is directed by stimuli. An individual selects one response instead ofanother because of prior conditioning and psychological drives existing at the moment of the action.
Therefore, it can be stated that behaviorism theory is a language theory that takes the environment as the main part of human behavior wherein the production of language occurs when there are internal and external stimulus.

Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory
The theory of cognitive development is proclaimed by Piaget where the way of children learning process consists of four stages of intellectual development. In other terms, there is also cognitive approach which explains the cognitive development of how the language is acquired by the children.
According to Siregar (2016) in Piaget's theory, as the brain develops and children's experiences expand, they move through four broad stages, each characterized by qualitatively distinct ways of thinking. Table below provides a brief description of Piaget's stages. In the sensory motor stage, cognitive development begins with the baby's use of the senses and movements to explore the world. These action patterns evolve into the symbolic but illogical thinking of the preschooler in the preoperational stage.
Next, come the concrete operational stage, when cognition is transformed into the more organized reasoning of the school-age child. Finally, in the formal operational stage, thought becomes the complex, abstract reasoning system of the adolescent and adult.

Socio Cultural Perspective
Socio cultural perspective tends to relate the feature of language acquisition which happens outside the mind with feature inside the mind.
This approach is familiarly proposed by J Piaget (1955) and L.S. Vygotsky (1962) who declare general theories of cognitive development based on the ideas of constructivism or the philosophy which believe that all human knowledge is constructed by the learner. Vygotsky's approach is believed as socio-constructivism since he believed that conscious social interaction is as the key of individual cognitive development whereas Piagets' approach is tend to be cognitive constructivism since he believed that the individual learn by way of some developmental stages. In this case, it can be stated that both Piaget and Vygotsky believed that language and language learning are mediated or represented through social and cultural factor.

The Social Factors in Language Learning
In general, social factor in language learning deal with the use of the language in society. It means that the social factors are significantly related to the sociolinguistics. In addition, the use of the language and the process of acquiring and learning the language tend to be influenced by social context which becomes the social factor. In other words, the process of language learning intrinsically does not only relate to the individual differences but also extrinsically relate to the social context.  There is the derivation that the social stratification and social mobility of parents help to encourage or discourage students' communication and classroom experience especially during the teaching-learning process. The ability of the child to utilize the classroom language cannot be separated from his linguistic background, as the family is the agency that socializes the child primarily. The type of socialization given to the child with the language orientation, exhibits the socio-economic background of the family.
Furthermore, the process of learning English or second language learning definitely has the same social factors. In this case, Edvardsen (2010) also states that social environment is probably best factor that the triggers second language learning. This is because we come in contact with the environment around us all the time. This may relate to the Ecological System theory popularized by UrieBronfenbrenner (1979)

Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory (simplified)
From the figure above, it can be defined that the interaction process of language learning by children firstly starts from family environment or home in which it will be continued to school or peers and the community. In other words, it can be stated that family or home is the most important environment which tends to influence the language acquisition and language learning of the children.

The Definition of Students with Special Needs
Students with special needs are exactly not as a normal student. In other words, they are the students or the children who have the problem both intrinsically and extrinsically in learning. Thus, they need special attention and support in learning process.
According to Kirk et al. (2009) the term exceptional is generally used to include both the child with developmental disabilities and the child who is gifted. Here we define an exceptional child as a child who differs from the average child in (1) (5) physical characteristics. Gross (2004) defines that levels of intellectual giftedness, as defined by IQ ranges, and the level of prevalence of such children in the general population, appear as follows: 1:1,000-1:10,000 1:10,000-1:1 million Fewer than 1:1 million

The Categories of Students with Special Needs
There are some categories of students with special needs based impairments and learning difficulty. In other words, it can help the teachers in recognizing the students' needs in language learning and teaching process.
In addition, Wawryk(2004) states that learning disabilities range in severity and may interfere with the acquisition and use of one or more of the following:oral language (e.g., listening, speaking, understanding), reading (e.g., decoding, phonetic knowledge, word recognition, comprehension), written language (e.g., spelling and written expression) and mathematics (e.g., computation, problem solving).

The Research Design
This research was designed as qualitative and quantitative research. It was designed because this research was multivariable in order quantitative analysis wasused to describe the data with the aid of numerical data, while quantitative analysis was used to ‗quantify' results based on numbers. In other words, this research used and combined qualitative and quantitative method.

The Population
In this case, the population of the research was Junior High School Students atthe eighth grade of SLB Negeri Pembina Aceh Tamiang. The school was located at Jl.Landuh, Rantau, AcehTamiang.

The Sample
The sample of the research was chosen by using cluster random sampling technique. In addition, there were 10 classes of the eighth grade of SLB Pembina Aceh Tamiang. However, the researcher only took 3 classes of deaf students as the population of the research.Then, by using cluster random sampling, the writer chose only one class of deaf students as the sample of the research.In this research, there were two kinds of variables namely dependent and independent variable.

The Technique of Collecting Data
As mentioned above, this research was called as qualitative and quantitative research which combined both qualitative and quantitative method. In other words, in collecting the data, the researcher used observation and interview as the instrument to describe the date qualitatively.
In the different way, the researcher also used questionnaire and test as the instrument to describe the data quantitatively. The use of instruments of this research was described as follows: The observation is one of technique in collecting the data wherein the researcher will do the observation directly to the object of the research to find out the information based on the real situation or condition. In this case, it is also mentioned by Latief (2011) that naturalistic observation is a process of observing people when they are interacting among their cultural members of the community. In other words, in this research the observation was needed to see howthe social factors of parents affect the students' achievement. Thus, the researcher observed the classroom, house or the playground of the students.

The Interview
Interview is needed to help the researcher interpreted the data qualitatively.Borg (as cited in Latief, 2011) states that interview is a data gathering instrument that involves direct verbal interaction between individuals. Thus, in this research, the writer interviewed the teachers, parents and the students by asking some questions where the significant informations were collected. In this case, the researcher used direct interview (face to face) and systematic interview in which the questions were correlated as the whole.

The Questionnaire
A questionnaire is one of written instrument of the research which particularly includes the respondents as the source of the data. In this case, the researcher used questionnaire especially closed form questionnaire in JL3T Journal of Linguistics, Literature & Language Teaching which it provided answers or responses to be selected by respondents. In this case, the researcher used questionnaire to find out the influence of social factors on students' achievement in learning English.In addition, the researcher designed questionnaire for the students' parents in which the questionnaire included some questions which were correlated to parents' economic level, parents' education level, parents' occupation level and environment.

The Test
In this research, the test was designed to get the data of students' achievement in learning English. The test was designed based on the curriculum of the school. In this case, the data helped the researcher to interpret the data quantitatively in orderit can be identified whether the social factors significantly influence the students' achievement in learning English or not.

The Procedure of Data Analysis
The procedure of data analysis refers to the way of how the data of the research will be analyzed in order the finding and the conclusion of the research can be found and can be formulated. In addition, all the data of this researchwere analyzed and tested by statistic method in which the data were also processed by using SPSS17.0 for descriptive, correlation, ANOVA and predictive analysis. In this case, SPSS was helpful for the researcher in formulating the data as in Saragih (2015) states that SPSS (Statistical Program Smart Solution) is a very helpful application program in calculating the data especially the data which is related to research statistic.

The Description of Parents
As mentioned above, the independent variables of this research were the social factors of students' parents, namely parents' economic level, parents' education level, parents' occupation level and the environment.
In this case, the data on social factors of parents were obtained from the result of the questionnaire which was given to parents. Then, the data were processed of which the data were obtained in the form of value as can be seen as the table below:

Parents' Economic Level
According to the table of social factors questionnaire results, it showed that the highest value of parents' economic level was 22 and the lowest value was 7. In addition, the category of parents' economic level was described by making the interval between highest and lowest value. According to the data above, in this case, the most dominant economic level of parents of SLB Negeri Pembina Aceh Tamiang at the eighth grade were classified to the second criteria namely medium criteria wherein 60% of the students were from the medium-income families. In addition, economic level of the parents of students included income, ownership of property and environmental condition. Meanwhile, the expected highest value of the questionnaire was 24 that there was no one of students' parents got the highest value.

Parents' Education Level
In determining parents' education level, the same formula was used to find the data interval value of parents' education level. In addition, based on the table, the highest value was 12 and the lowest value was 5. of parents which graduated from university and 20% of parents were graduated from junior high school.

Parents' Occupation Level
According to the table of parents' occupation level, the highest value was 10 and the lowest value was 2. Thus, the data can be obtained as follows:

Environment
According to the table of the environment, the highest value was 32 and the lowest value was 22. Thus, the data can be obtained as follows: an adequate environment and 40% of students lived in the environment which was not conducive.

Parents' Economic Level and Students' Achievement
Parents' economic level in this research focused on family income, ownership and vehicles. To find out the relationship between parents' economic level and students' achievement, Spearman Bivariate Correlation was used in this research. In addition, the correlation between parents' economic level and students' achievement was shown as the table below:

FINDING AND DISCUSSION
According to the social factors (the independent variables) which were believed can influence the students' achievement in learning English, the finding of the research was concluded to be several points.
The first, there was no significant correlation between parents' economic level (X1) and students' achievement in learning English (Y). In other word, the higher or the lower the parents' economic level did not determine and did not influence the students' score in learning English.
The second, both parents' education level (X2) and students' achievement (Y) have no significant relationship or they have negative correlation. In addition, the higher the parents' education level was not followed by the higher the students' score. Otherwise, some students whose parents were highly educated got low score. Thus, Parents' education level significantly did not influence the students' achievement in learning English. The third, the significant and the positive correlation was also not found in the relationship between parents' occupation level (X3) and students' achievement (Y). In other word, both of the variables significantly have no correlation or relationship.Thus, it can be concluded that the higher the parents' occupation does not always followed by the higher the students' score.
The fourth, there was no any correlation between environment and students' achievement. In addition, the correlation coefficient was there was -0.03 (no possible correlation) which showed negative correlation between environment (X4) and students' achievement (Y). Thus, it can be stated that that the environment did not give impact to the students' achievement in learning English.
The last, based on the result and the finding of the research, there was no social factors of this research namely parents' economic level, parents' education level, parents' occupation level and environment which influence the students' achievement in learning English. In other words, the variety of students' achievement in learning English may be caused and influenced by other factors. In addition, the others factor may come from the students its self (personality), the disability of the students or the factors which come for the school. Furthermore, based on the observation and the interview to some of the teachers, it was found that the condition of the school was not effective enough and some of the teachers stated that they got some difficulties in teaching the students whether how to use sign language or to make teaching aids or media in teaching. Thus, these problemsareprobably can be the factor which may influence the variety of students' achievement in learning English.

JL3T
Journal of Linguistics, Literature & Language Teaching 1. Because of there is no correlation between socials factors of the parents to the students' achievement in learning English, it does not mean that the parents' do not give any impact to their children achievement in learning especially English. In other words, there may some other factors of the parents which can influence the students' achievement such as the life style of the parents, cultures, personality, religion, etc. Thus, the parents are expected to always pay the attention to their children.
2. Both teachers and parents are hoped to be able to recognize the characteristics of the children because the variety of the children's achievements is not always influenced by the external factor but it is probably also influenced by the internal factor of the children.

3.
For the readers who are interested to do this research, it is suggested to do further research which focuses on other factors which can influence the achievement of students or children in learning English.