The Students of International Physics Class at UNP: How Do They Acquire English?

摘要

In 2017, Universitas Negeri Padang opened its first international class in 15 study programs spread across 8 faculties within the university. The international class referred to here is a class where the academic community including lecturers and students use an international language, namely English, in the teaching and learning process. From a preliminary research, it was found that the English skills of the international class students of the Physics Education Study Program 2018 were very good. This research aims at finding out how these students acquired their English skills. Their efforts as well as any factors that support and hinder them during the acquisition process were analyzed. The results of data analysis showed that: 1) the most used effort to acquire English language skills done by these students is listening to English songs and films, 2) They listen to songs and watch English films by using the media and the resources available around them, 3) the factor that supports them in acquiring English is the interaction between them and people around them in English, and 4) the factors which inhibits them are the lack of self-motivation and negative views from people around them when they practice their English. The results of this study are very useful for lecturers to be used or applied in the teaching and learning process.