Perception of English Students Toward Learning Speaking During The Pandemic

Covid-19 pandemic caused learning methods that were initially offline to become online. Therefore, this study aims to analyze students’ perceptions toward speaking during the pandemic. Quantitative descriptive method is used in this study with a questionnaire as an instrument. The results indicate that students respond positively toward online learning. This is evidenced by 54.81% of students who are inclined towards offline learning. While, the results based on gender, there are not specific difference between male and female students. Where 59.33% of male students give positive responses to online learning and 50.69% of female students gave positive responses to online learning.

Volume: 9 Nomor : 2 Bulan : Mei Tahun : 2023 However, learning online and offline both have advantages and disadvantages. It is supported by the previous research conducted by (Almahasees et al., 2021), who was identify the students' perception of online learning during . The result reveals that online learning less efficient than the offline learning, there are many challenging in online learning and made the interaction between students and tutor insufficient. As stated by (Widianto et al., 2021), an online learning system, the advantage is increased interaction between students and lecturers or teachers, then learning can be done anywhere and anytime. Learning has also become more independent and provides many learning experiences using platforms or applications to support online learning. Meanwhile, the shortcomings that students can feel are the limited internet signal, and the bad use of internet data, and there are still many students who are in rural areas who do not have an internet network at all (Astini, 2020).
Weaknesses and strengths also in offline learning. Offline learning has several advantages, including direct delivery of material and interaction of teaching in learning activities, which allows lecturers to directly monitor student learning activities and make it easier for students to ask questions or discuss. The drawbacks are that the study room has limited time and a limited number of students to carry out learning. The intended face-to-face learning system based on the offline system has certain changes, the learning hours are shorter, and the material presented is less (Pratama & Mulyati, 2020).
However, based on the online and offline learning system, students' perception to both of learning systems are necessary to be investigated. Perception can be defined as direct responses (acceptance) of something or the process of someone knowing several things through their five senses. According to (Syam, 2021) perception is the way people process certain information they received by using people five senses. Perception is an organized interpretation to a stimulus and able to influence attitudes and behavior (Jafar, 2019). Hence, the perception is about students thought, opinion and idea toward something that influence someone behaviour.
Later, implementaton of online and offline learning certainly raises various kinds of perceptions among students. According to Open Textbook Library University of Minnesota, individual differences caused people perceived things differently, this is because physical characteristic influence how people perceive and respond to information. Perception are divide into two categories, there are positive and negative perception. (Ramlah, 2020) claimed that positive perception influenced by various things that gives positive meaning through the cognitive and effective process from individual stimulus. Meanwhile, negative perception is a way off looking or judging something with consideration that are unreasonable or expected to be different from what they want. Thus, positive perception is an enthusiastic response toward object that give a good meaning as expected, and negative perception is a response toward object that are not as expected.
Therefore, this research is deemed necessary to conduct. The focus is to investigate students' perceptions of learning English speaking, which is carried out online and offline, then look at the differences in responses between male and female students. Perception is important in learning because it affects student achievement in learning activities and behavior. Moreover, the categorized base on gender is important to figure out because there is a difference between girls' and boys' interest in learning. According to (Nasser, 2016) girls typically get higher scores on standardized tests, especially in language skills and verbal expression, this is because the corpus callosum in girls' brains is more thickly wired than boy. Mostly, speaking involves a lot of interaction and communication between lecturers and students in teaching and learning activities, while learning online or offline has its advantages and disadvantages.

Method
This research used qualitative descriptive method. According to (Silverman, 2020), the qualitative descriptive method theoretically consists of human experience which empirically occurs when researchers analyze problems in the object of research. The data collection process was carried out using an online questionnaire that had been prepared with a total of 23 questions that had been tested for validity and reliability. Validity and reliability tests were carried out manually using Microsoft Excel.
Tests were carried out on 30 respondents outside the core respondents so R table = 0.361 with a significance of 5%. All questions are declared "valid" because R count > R table. Besides being valid, all questions were also declared reliable because Cronbachs' Alpha > 0.70, where the results obtained were 0.81> Volume: 9 Nomor : 2 Bulan : Mei Tahun : 2023 0.70. Questionnaire Design is divided into two main parts, namely the identity of the respondent and the core questions. The respondent's identity section was filled in by each participant to obtain information about their demographic profile such as name, age and gender. The second part consists of 20 questions with a 4 -point Likert scale, multiple choice consists of 2 questions, and 1 question short answer model.
The form of the question uses multiple choice questions totaling two questions, a Likert scale totaling 20 questions with four categories from 1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree, and one short answer question model. The questionnaire was distributed to 204 respondents through online media by utilizing the Google Forms platform. Respondents were selected purposively from the target population which consisted of active students in the English department, Gorontalo State University.
Before filling out the questionnaire, respondents were given information about the purpose of the research and their rights as research participants. Furthermore, after completing the questionnaire, data was collected and analyzed using a quantitative descriptive technique with a formula: = × 100% Description: P = The percentage value of the respondent's questionnaire. F = Frequency of the results of the respondent's questionnaire N = Total number of respondents

Results and Discussion Results
The result of this study showed about 55% of English students have a positive perception toward speaking learning. The percentage of each category are presented in the following description. As can be seen in Figure  1, 38.09% of students selected agree, 33.97% selected disagree, 16.72% selected strongly agree, and 11.23% selected strongly disagree with the online learning system of speaking learning.

Figure 1. The Perceptions of Speaking Learning Among English Students
This result indicates that the speaking learning process requires learning situations that can be supported by learning methods that are appropriate to the skill level. According to (Sholihah, 2020), speaking skills are not something that can be mastered clearly without going through intensive practice. Thus, to develop scientific speaking skills, practical methods and good mastery of theory are needed to be able to acquire them well in the learning process.

Figure 2. Graph of Student Perceptions Based on the Learning System
As explained in the previous description, the respondents tend to have preferred online-based learning. However, to summarize the result, it showed that 54.81% of students have a positive perception toward the online learning system compared to 53.87% of students whose preferred offline learning. It can be seen in the following chart, as an average of 38.09% answered agree and 16.72% answered strongly agree regarding the online learning system. However, there was no much difference between online and offline learning that students have chosen. The result of the questionnaire obtained respond that were almost equal. Though, students would rather choose online speaking learning. On the other hand, online learning for speaking skills itself is considered less effective because students cannot freely express themselves. This is in line with (Pahargyan, 2021), statement that speaking learning or speaking skills carried out by distance learning can trigger anxiety for students.

Perceptions of English Students Based on Gender
Based on gender, the researcher found that 45.15% of female students answered disagreed compared to male students whose only 28.33% answered disagreed that speaking learning was carried out online. The main reason was that it minimizes their opportunity to communicate freely with lecturers, because it could be disrupted by the network. In March, 59% of female respondents considered COVID-19 to be very serious (Rodriguez-Besteiro et al., 2021). Based on the survey of Basteiro, this made female students more amenable to more effective face-to-face learning in order to reduce their problems in learning during the Covid-19 pandemic.  However, male students gave more positive perceptions regarding the online learning system as seen in the chart about 35.00% of students answered agree and 23.33% answered strongly agree. In contrast, 36.11% of female students answered agreed and 14.58% answered strongly agreed with the online learning system. To sum up, the positive response between male and female students was not much different regarding online speaking learning. However, the number of negative perceptions tends to be greater among female students. This is influenced by differences in processing language skills, where men tend to actively process their visual abilities while women are more concerned with listening skills and everything related to sound or sound production (Erdianna et al, 2019). According to Naghadeh et al (2016) women tend to feel afraid compared to men when teachers or lecturers correct their mistakes while speaking.

Discussion
Based on the result, the researchers found the overall data, which is students' perception of speaking skill tends to be positive with more than 50% average answer (elaboration from the scale strongly agree and agree). Due to the English skill that must be taught, speaking had been carry out by online during Covid-19 pandemic. However, online learning has positive respond from the students. This can be proved by the statement "Speaking in the online learning process is very helpful in replacing conventional learning during the Covid-19 pandemic" in the questionnaire, where the majority of 51.96% (106 students) answered agree and 30.88% (63 students) answered strongly agree. This perception arises because the online system is considered to be an alternative during a pandemic and can flexibly study time (Agung et al., 2021). However, the students respond between online and offline learning not too different. There are also many students gave positive respond to offline learning. Nevertheless, online learning is higher than offline learning based on the questionnaire. The percentage figures indicating that online speaking learning is suitable as an alternative during a pandemic, the other students also disagree that online learning can improve their speaking skills. One of the obstacles in online learning is the stability of the internet network.
Later, researcher decided to seek the difference between male and female students' responses. Gender differences also exist in the use of language for the language-learning process, and men and women are different in their ways of learning and understanding the lesson (Khairunnisa, 2018). The positive response between male and female students was not much different regarding online speaking learning. However, the number of negative perceptions tends to be greater among female students. This is influenced by differences in processing language skills, where men tend to actively process their visual abilities while women are more concerned with listening skills and everything related to sound or sound production (Erdianna et al, 2019). According to Naghadeh et al (2016) women tend to feel afraid compared to men when teachers or lecturers correct their mistakes while speaking. This is the reason why male students prefer online speaking, they tend to relax than female students in learning activity. While the female students want their speaking English to be better by the most effective way.

Conclusions
Online learning system is an alternative learning during Covid-19 pandemic. There are various students' perception of the learning that is applied. Some students agree that learning speaking English is applied online by 54.81% of students' positive response toward online speaking learning. However, the differences are not significant. This is because students also do not want online learning continuously. Considering that online learning depends on internet connection. Then based on gender, there is no significant difference. Both male and female students are slightly inclined toward speaking that carried online. However, the response of male students slightly more than female students. This is evidence by 58.33% of male students' positive response in online learning. This shows that women think about effectiveness when learning is done face-to-face because there are many conveniences that students get when studying face-to-face compared to online learning. Women tend to think more deeply and effectively while making judgments than men do, which has a huge impact on decisions between the genders (Astalini et al., 2021). However, there is no significant difference between the male and female gender in their perception of online learning. In terms of selfconfidence in teaching speaking online, both male and female students gave positive responses.