Abstract

This research aims at finding out students’ personal initiative towards their achievement in speaking English. This research was conducted in an English department at a university in North Sulawesi Indonesia. The data were obtained from the sixth semester students in English Language and Literature study program of academic year 2015/2016 consisting of 21 students. In obtaining the data about students’ personal initiative, a questionnaire was distributed, and for the speaking performance, the data were obtained from students’ scores in Public Speaking subject. To find out the relation between these two variables, Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient formula was used. The result of this research shows that there is a correlation between students’ personal initiative towards their speaking performance with the value of  = (0.52) categorized as a moderate correlation. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that personal initiative of students was important to be considered as one of several determination factors for students’ achievement in English speaking skill. It is suggested that students encourage themselves for taking initiative to speak, and for the teacher to give the students correction and suggestion to help them develop themselves.

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