How to cite:
Sanusi, Muhammad Ihsan, Muhammad Sofian Hadi (2022). Google Assistant In Teaching Pronunciation
To Junior High School Students Post-Pandemic Era, Jurnal Syntax Transformation, 3 (8).
https://doi.org/10.46799/jst.v3i8.599
E-ISSN:
2721-2769
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Jurnal Syntax Transformation
Vol. 3, No. 8, August 2022
p-ISSN : 2721-3854 e-ISSN : 2721-2769
Sosial Sains
GOOGLE ASSISTANT IN TEACHING PRONUNCIATION TO JUNIOR HIGH
SCHOOL STUDENTS POST-PANDEMIC ERA
Muhammad Ihsan Sanusi, Muhammad Sofian Hadi
Universitas Muhammadiyah Jakarta, Jakarta, Indonesia
Email : [email protected], M.Sofi[email protected]
INFO ARTIKEL
ABSTRACT
Diterima
23 July 2022
Direvisi
10 July 2022
Disetujui
23 August 2022
The objective of this study is to teach pronunciation using Google
Assistant to junior high school students. This study uses a quantitative
approach with a pre-experimental design. In this study the researcher
uses one class as the sample with a total of students are 25 students.
The data were collected tests test that was pre-test, treatment, and
post-test. The research results are explained based on the research
findings. the findings showed that the students’ results progress. the
findings reveal that Google Assistant is effective as one of the media in
teaching pronunciation to junior high school students
Keywords:
Google Assistant,
teaching,
pronunciation
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic that is
happening around the world has a negative
impact on the world's education system. This
cannot be ignored and requires special
handling because education is one of the
aspect in human life which can have a
negative impact if there are deficiencies.
However, with a good education, it will
provide a good mindset, develop human
personality and help humans in social
relations. as explained by (Soares et al., 2022)
People who have received education in a
certain profession are better equipped to think,
feel, and act in ways that promote success and
raise both their own level of happiness and
that of their community. In addition,
Education shapes people's personalities,
thoughts, and interactions with others, as well
as preparing them for life experiences.
Therefore, many countries have given their
policies regarding education during this
pandemic.
One of them is Indonesia, the
government in Indonesia provides a policy n
the Minister of Education and Culture's
Circular Letter No. 4 / 2020 which contains
policies to conduct distance learning or online
learning. It supported by (Sintema, 2020)
Lockdown and homebound strategies have
been used to flatten the curve and stop the
transmission of the disease. This is certainly
very disturbing the education system.
As mentioned by (Yasmeen, 2021) in
more than 200 countries, With an impact on
about 1.6 billion students, COVID-19 has
created the largest disruption to educational
systems in recorded human history. This
further shows that COVID-19 has had a dire
impact on education in more than 200
countries. Actually, this be able to very
disturbed every activity in the education
system.
In addition (Kathula, 2020) in his
research Covid-19 Pandemic's Impact on
Kenya's Education System According to the
findings of his study, COVID-19 has a
negative impact on the educational system in
many ways, including disruption of
instruction, restricted access to learning
Google Assistant In Teaching Pronunciation To Junior High School Students Post-
Pandemic Era
Jurnal Syntax Transformation, Vol. 3, No. 8, August 2022 1083
resources like laboratories, job losses in the
education sector, particularly for teachers in
private schools, and many other things. From
the arguments above, we know that COVID-
19 has had a considerable impact on
education. And the education system that is
conducted by online learning still not running
optimally because every country have their
different conditions, especially developing
countries.
In the majority of developing countries,
the connection to the internet is still very low
and the prices are more expensive and not in
accordance with the income of the local
community. As (Yasmeen, 2021), In many
developing nations, internet accessibility and
affordability are inadequate because there are
insufficient access points and a low speed and
data plans are expensive in comparison to
people's salaries. As the background above, it
certainly can delay the teaching and learning
process, one of which is learning English.
English has to be mastered by students
in this era and requires face-to-face learning to
help facilitate the learning process for the
students. The most important thing in
conducting face-to-face learning is actually to
keep the communication so that students and
teachers can communicate easily as when
doing group assignments. As Salmon argued,
in (Bali & Liu, 2018), When it comes to group
and communication success, which has
something to do with cognitive presence,
social presence is crucial. Therefore, face-to-
face learning is expected to make it easier for
students to learn English because People must
speak English if they want to communicate
with people from other nations.
Those that believe, that is! Whenever
Allah (SWT) spoke to you. Give room in the
gathering, then be at ease; Allah will make
room for you. And when you instructed others
to stand, then stand, Allah would raise their
degrees in terms of belief among you, as well
as those of the knowledgeable few. 11. in Q.S.
Al Mujadalah
Based on the verse above, we
understand that learning a language is a good
thing, because language is one of the branches
of knowledge that is widely used to seek
knowledge, and Allah in Islam strongly
obliges the servants to seek knowledge and
Allah promises to raise degree people who
knew. In learning English, there are many
things that English students need to master to
master English.
Four skills have to be mastered by
students, That is reading, writing, listening
and speaking. As claimed by (Nan, 2018)
reading, writing, speaking, and listening are
not merely academic disciplines. These four
skills are the main things that must be
mastered by English language students. But
the fourth skills above isskillnough. There are
still many other skills that must be mastered
by students to support the four main skills
above that is vocabulary and pronunciation.
Pronunciation in (Cruttenden, 2014)
pronunciation is how words and sentences are
accented. This means that every sound, word,
and sentence spoken by people is a
pronunciation. Pronunciation is one of the
important factors in mastering English. This
can be a sign for English students who have
mastered English. Therefore, pronunciation as
one of aspectspects in speaking requires
special attention and instructions.
As claimed by (Aliakbari &
Jamalvandi, 2010) speaking is considered as
one of the main topics of communication in
EFL instruction. It is a factor that requires
particular consideration and training.
Speaking is a very vital thing in learning
English, in speaking there is pronunciation
which is an aspect that is more considered by
the audience. Someone can judge our English
skills by how well we pronounce it or how
well we pronounce every English word like a
native speakers. This is because listeners don't
only pay attention to the vocabulary or
grammatical structures we use when we
speak. The majority of listeners give their
Muhammad Ihsan Sanusi, Muhammad Sofian Hadi
1084 Jurnal Syntax Transformation, Vol. 3, No. 8, August 2022
attention to the pronunciation to know the
speaker's English skills. Through good
pronunciation and similar to a native, people
can conclude that we have mastered English
well. So this is the reason why mastering
pronunciation is very important.
Therefore based on the experience of
the researchers. Researcher want to improve
students' pronunciation skills. Because it is
known that many students are not good at
pronunciation, such as the researcher's
observation experience that has been carried
out during the two-week internship program,
at SMP DUA MEI CIPUTAT there are still
many students who make mistakes in
pronouncing English sentences. This can be
seen when each student asked by the teacher
to read the conversation in front of his friends.
Then it is also seen when students are asked
by teacher to introduce themselves and their
preferences. This may be cause to teachers
who do not provide examples of
pronunciation or teaching techniques that are
not appropriate
As said by (Al-Mahrooqi, 2012), there
is one reason why students are not proficient
enough in pronunciation, sometimes teacher
do not give the right example in good
peonunciation and Teachers only use very
simple language in the classroom. It supported
by (Çakır & Baytar, 2014), pronunciation is
one of controversial topics in english language
teaching as a second language or foreign
language. Therefore, teaching pronunciation
as one of the important things in English
requires teachers who have good English
skills and have creative teaching methods so
that they can increase students' motivation and
interest.
In addition (Levis & Suvorov, 2012),
which said that insufficient student practice of
pronunciation is a common source of English
pronunciation teaching and learning issues,
along with improper teaching materials and
time constraints. It is known that in the
current era with high technological advances,
there are many ways and many media that can
be used to learn English.
As explained by (Mustafa, 2018),
Technology incorporates language education
communication strategies in which the
personal computer plays a significant role.
With learning that uses technology can helps
students to become more independent in
learning. As claimed by (Levis &
McCrocklin, 2013) that conducted a study on
the effects of pronunciation learning based on
sound detection technology on students'
pronunciation abilities. The study concluded
that when the learning process is handled via
technology, children feel more independent,
especially when it comes to pronunciation.
And then (Benzies et al., 2017) explain
that the use of technology media in the
learning process is preferred and in demand
by students. Later the technology media that
will be used by researchers here is an
application from Google, it’s called Google
Assistant.
Google Assistant is an application from
Google. It is mentioned by Wikipedia The
artificial intelligence-powered virtual assistant
known as Google Assistant is primarily
accessible on mobile and smart home devices.
It was developed by Google. This application
can speak and can be set using various
languages, one of which is English.
Researchers believe that this application can
improve students' pronunciation skills. As
claimed by (Tai & Chen, 2020) found students
were less nervous and more motivated to
utilize English for authentic and meaningful
communication since they enjoyed playing
games with Google Assistant and interacting
with chatbots.
In addition (Chen et al., 2020) in their
research, learners enjoyed interacting with
Google Assistant and considered Google
Assistant an inspiring tool to learn English.
hey also discovered that Google Assistant can
help them improve their speaking and
listening skills. They thought Google
Google Assistant In Teaching Pronunciation To Junior High School Students Post-
Pandemic Era
Jurnal Syntax Transformation, Vol. 3, No. 8, August 2022 1085
Assistant's pronunciation was natural and its
utterances were understandable. It means
using Google Assistant makes the learning
process easier and helps students become
more interested in learning pronunciation.
Therefore to create a more active and fun
learning process. the author tries to use the
application in the smartphone that is Google
Assistant. it will use to improve students'
pronunciation abilities.
Based on the background above, the
researcher will conduct a research entitled
"Google Assistant in Teaching Pronunciation
to Junior High School Students Post Pandemic
Era. The objective of this study is to answer
the question above whether Google Assistant
Application can improve junior high school
students pronunciation.
Methods
In this study, the researcher will use a
quantitative approach using a pre-
experimental design. As explained by Moreso
in (Mustapha et al., 2018), research deals with
quantifying, observing, and collecting data or
variabels in order to get results and make a
conclusions about the data. The researcher
will take pre-test and post-test for the
research. (Creswell, 2014), the design is for
one group only which includes a pre-test
followed by treatment and a post-test at the
end. The test aims to know the students ability
in pronunciation before use Google Assistant
application and after use the application.
The population of this study is all
eighth grade students at MTS Darunnaim
YAPIA, a total population of 25 pupils in a
class, while the sample is a par or
representation of the population under study.
The researcher was take one class as a sample.
The researcher was take VIII A consist of 24
students as experiment class.
In this research, the researcher used
quantitative method which must collect the
data. Besides, to collect the data have to use
tests as instruments for the research. Pre-test,
Treatment and Post test.
Results and Discussion
A. Research results
1. Pre-test
Table 1
Statistic of Pre-test
Descriptive Statistics
N
Minimum
Maximum
Sum
Mean
Std. Deviation
Pre
25
60
82
1737
69.48
6.514
Valid N (listwise)
25
Based on the the pre-test data
that researcher has conducted, the mean score of students is 69,48, the minimum
score is 60, standard deviation 6.51.
Table 2
Frequency and Ratte Percentage of the Students’ Pronunciation in Pre-test
Score
Classifications
Freq
%
Excellent
85-100
0
0
Good
70-84
12
45%
Fair
55-69
13
55%
Poor
50-54
0
0
Very poor
0-49
0
0
Total
25
100%
Muhammad Ihsan Sanusi, Muhammad Sofian Hadi
1086 Jurnal Syntax Transformation, Vol. 3, No. 8, August 2022
In the pre-test of 25 students, the
frequency and percentage of students'
pronunciations are shown in Table 2 As
was already said, the majority of the
pupils (55%) fell into the fair
classification. Meanwhile, 45 percent of
students receive good grades.
Additionally, no pupils received either
an excellent classification. In
conclusion, the eighth-grade students of
Darunnaim YAPIA Junior High School
exhibited average pronunciation skills
before to treatment.
2. Post-test
Table 3
Statistic of Post-test
Descriptive Statistics
N
Minimum
Maximum
Sum
Mean
Std. Deviation
Post
25
75
96
2115
84.60
5.979
Valid N (listwise)
25
Based on the the post-test data that
researceher has conducted, the mean score of students is 84.60, the minimum score is
75 and standard deviation 5.979.
Table 4
Frequency and Rate Percentage of the Students’ Pronunciation in Post-test
Score
Classifications
Freq
%
Excellent
85-100
12
45%
Good
70-84
13
55%
Fair
55-69
0
0
Poor
50-54
0
0
Very poor
0-49
0
0
Total
25
100%
Table 4 showed the frequency
and percentage of the students
pronunciation in the post-test from 25
students. As presented in the table,
more than a half of the students were in
good category or have an improvement
in their pronunciation ability. And then
other students occupy the excellent
classification. There was no students
were in fair, poor and very poor. It
meant that students pronunciation
ability in that school was significantly
improved after treatment.
Table 5
The Improvement of the Students’ Pronunciation in Pre-test and Post-test
Indicator
Pre-test
Post-test
Improvement
pronunciation
69.48
84.60
21,76%
Base on the table above 5 the pre-
test score is 69.48 and the post-test score is
84.60. Post-test score > pre-test score. As
a result, the stduents' mean of pre-test and
post-test scores increased by 21.76%. This
demonstrates that students' use of google
assistant in learning pronunciation has
increased significantly.
Google Assistant In Teaching Pronunciation To Junior High School Students Post-
Pandemic Era
Jurnal Syntax Transformation, Vol. 3, No. 8, August 2022 1087
Figure 1 Diagram of Frequency Distribution of Pre-test and Post-test
3. Hyphotesis Testing
Using a t-test analysis with a
significance level of (p) + 0.05 and
degrees of freedom (df) = N-1, where N
is the number of subjects (25 students),
and the t-table value is 2.068, a
dependent sample analysis was
performed to evaluate the significance
level of the pre-test and post-test. The
researcher uses the SPSS 28 program to
assess the t-test for the study's
hypothesis, according to which (Ho)
Google Assistant is ineffective in
helping students with their
pronunciation. In the academic years
2021–2022, Alternative Hypothesis
(H1) asserts that Google Assistant is
useful in improving eighth-grade
students' pronunciation skills at MTs
Darunnaim YAPIA. The table below
displays the t-test calculation result.
Table 6
Paired Samples Test
Paired Differences
T
Df
Sig.
(2-
tailed)
Mean
Std.
Deviation
Std.
Error
Mean
95%
Confidence
Interval of the
Difference
Lower
Upper
Pair 1
Pre –
post
-
15.120
6.037
1.207
-
17.612
-
12.628
-
12.523
24
.001
The Sig. (2tailed) is 0.001 < 05,
H0 is rejected and H1 is acceptable,
according to the "Paired Samples Test"
output-table above. Therefore, it can be
refuted that there is a mean score
difference between the pre-test and
post-test learning outcomes, proving
Google Assistants’ effectiveness in
students pronunciation ability.
There are numerous techniques
to evaluate the hypothesis in this paired
sample t-test besides comparing the
significance p-value (Sig.) with a
probability of 0.05. Specifically by
contrasting the t-value count with the t-
table. The fundamentals of decision-
making are as follows.
1. If the value of t-count > t-table, then
H0 is rejected and H1 is accepted.
2. In fact, if the value of t-count < t-
table, then H0 is accepted and H1 is
rejected.
Muhammad Ihsan Sanusi, Muhammad Sofian Hadi
1088 Jurnal Syntax Transformation, Vol. 3, No. 8, August 2022
The t-count, which is -12.523, is
known to be negative based on the output
table "Paired Samples Test" above. T-
count is negative because the mean pre-test
score was lower than the mean post-test
score. In situations like this, the positive t-
count can access the negative t-count. In
order for t-count to have the value of
12.523. The t-table is searched based on the
df value (degrees of freedom or degrees of
freedom) and the significance value in
order to determine the value.
The researcher utilized this value as
a reference standard in computing the t-table
value in the distribution of the t-table
statistics since it was evident from the
output above that the df value is 23 and the
value 0.05. Then ascertain the 2.068 t-table
value. As a result, the basic decision-
making choice made above can be rejected
because the t-value is 12.523>2.068,
meaning that H0 is rejected and H1 is
accepted. Therefore, it may be argued that
there is no mean score difference between
the learning outcomes measured before
and after the test.
The significance of the data in the
Kolmogorov-Smirnov table was 200, as
can be seen from the table above. Because
the significance value is greater than =
0.05, it indicates that the data are regularly
distributed.
Table 8
Variable
t-test Value
t-table Value
Pronunciation
12.523
2.068
The t-test value (12.523>2.068) was
higher than the t-table value. It implies that
there was an improvement in the pupils'
ability to pronounce words correctly when
using Google Assistant. It is feasible to
infer that H0 was rejected and H1 was
accepted based on the explanation
provided above. Or, to put it another way,
the use of Google Assistant is effective in
teaching pronunciation to junior high
school students.
Discussion
In order to prove the hypothesis, the
researcher used the result of pre-test and post-
test that calculated using SPSS aplication. The
result t-test value is higher than t-table
(12.523>2.068), the alternative hypothesis
(H1) is accepted and the null hypothesis (H0)
is rejected. It means that Google Assistant can
improve junior high school students’
pronunciation skill.
The students english pronunciation
score after being treated with Google
Assistant was higher than their score before
the treatment. Before the researcher give the
treatment to the students there are 55%
students in fair classification and after the
treatment there is a 0% in fair classification it
prove that Google Assistant give significant
effect for students pronunciation ability. And
it can be seen from the average of the post-test
(84.60) which is higher than pre-test average
(69.48) that have an improvement 21.76%.
The significance scores of the students
pronunciation test result is 200 which were
higher than 0.05 showed that Google
Assistant gave the significant result for
students pronunciation.
Conclusion
Based on the results and analyses of the
data shown above, it can be concluded that
using Google Assistant to help students with
their pronunciation is effective. The pupils'
mean score improvement from the pre-test to
the post-test serves as proof of this. The
average pre-test score for students was 69.48,
which is considered to be a fair classification;
however, the average post-test score was
Google Assistant In Teaching Pronunciation To Junior High School Students Post-
Pandemic Era
Jurnal Syntax Transformation, Vol. 3, No. 8, August 2022 1089
higher at 84.60, which is considered to be an
excellent classification, and there was an
improvement of 21.76 percent. Additionally,
data analysis demonstrates that the t-test value
(12.523>2.068) is higher than the t-test-table
value. This suggests that the differences are
significant. H0 is therefore disregarded, but
H1 is approved. In other words, junior high
school pupils can learn proper pronunciation
with Google Assistant. In the future, teachers
are expected to be able to use Google
Assistant as an additional medium in carrying
out learning and students also become more
independent by utilizing the Google Assistant
application which can be used anywhere.
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