Self-Esteem and Its Correlation to the Speaking Ability for Vocational Diploma Students in Indonesia

Communicating in English is not easy for the EFL students, a number of students feel shy and afraid of making mistakes while speaking. One of the aspects which may come about to this is about students’ self-esteem. This study aimed to investigate if there is significant correlation between self-esteem and speaking ability. This study took 50 male and 50 female vocational diploma students of Indonesian Railways Polytechnic as the sample of the research. This research applied a quantitative approach using correlational research. The analysis showed that the diploma students’ self-esteem is categorized significantly above average, while students’ speaking ability is categorized at a good level based on the mean score of speaking achievement. The finding of this study was also analyzed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient analysis that revealed the r count is 0.239 > r table 0.1966 which means that there is significant correlation between self- esteem and speaking ability