THE CORRELATION BETWEEN STUDENTS’ MOTIVATION IN LEARNING ENGLISH AND THEIR SPEAKING PERFORMANCE AT THE TENTH GRADE OF STATE SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL 1 TAPUNG HILIR

The purpose of this study is to know whether there is any correlation between students’ motivation in learning English and their speaking performance at the tenth grade of State Senior High School 1 Tapung Hilir. From 230 students of the total population which consisted of six classes, the researcher took 35 students as the sample by using systematic sampling. In collecting the data, the researcher distributed questionnaire to the respondents to assess their motivation in learning English. The questionnaire based on the indicators of motivation in learning English which adapted from The Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) by Gardner and translated into Indonesian language. Besides, in assessing students’ speaking performance, this research conducted an oral test to the students. In analysing the data, the questionnaire was assessed by rating scale, and oral test was measured by David’s scale rating. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Technique was used in order to measure the correlation between the two variables which quantified the strength as well as direction of the correlation. The result of this research showed that the students’ motivation in learning English was 60.11% while their speaking performance was 73.3. In terms of the correlation between students’ motivation in learning English and their speaking performance, the researcher found that sig-t = 0.025 < α (0.05), and the coefficient correlation in this research was 0.379, it means that there was a medium correlation between those variables. Based on the research findings, it could be concluded that there is a significant correlation between students’ motivation in learning English and their speaking performance. Key words: motivation, speaking performance, correlatio