Factors Affecting Students’ Disengagement during English Lessons at SMP Islam Ma’arif 03 Malang

Engagement in learning is the vital ingredient of effective teaching and learning which is expected to generate greater benefit to the students. The more the students engage in learning, the greater the benefit they get. This study aims to investigate the level of students’ engagement of SMP Islam Ma’arif 03 Malang during English lessons seen from behavioral, emotional, and cognitive perspectiveand the factors that affect students’ disengagement during English lessons. This study implementedqualitativeresearch design using a case study the purposes of which were primarily to obtain a detailed description and gain an understanding of the case. The main instrument was the researcher who collected the data using observation checklist to the classroom activity, questionnaire to all the eighth graders, and interview guide addressed to four selected disengaged students, the English teacher, and the counselor teacher who was considered close to the eighth graders. Based on the findings, the level of the eighth graders’ engagement was varied. From behavioral perspective 80% of the students showed positive conducts and only 11% of them showed active participation and involvement. From emotional perspective, 30% of them were highly engaged, 50% were moderately engaged, and 20% were disengaged. From cognitive perspective, 15% of students assessed themselves had low engagement through self report, yet based on comprehension and performance reviewed from learning result, 73% had low achievement. Those three dimensions of engagement seem to affect each other. The low behavioral engagement (involvement) was caused by their emotional disaffection which then caused them to have low cognitive engagement. The other findings reveal that the most influenced factors of students’ disengagement are transactional engagement between student and teacher or teacher factor followed by non-institutional support that is family or parents’ support. Therefore, the English teacher of the eighth gradeis suggestedthat he implement student-centered and fun learning in class, build a good rapport with the students, give more praise or reward to increase students’ self-esteem, and stimulate students in class. For the headmaster, it is suggestedthat he increase parents’ role in students’ learning and also support the English teacher to improve his competence in teaching.Future researchers mayimprove the study by conducting a similar study related to students’ classroom engagement in English class focusing on the specific skills (listening/ speaking/ reading/ writing).