Pengaruh Lingkungan Sekolah Terhadap Proses Peningkatan Kemampuan Berbicara Bahasa Inggris = The Influence of School Environment in the Process of Improving English Speaking Ability

ABSTRACT Achmad Wafi. The Influence of School Environment in the Process of Improving English Speaking Ability at SMA Negeri 1 Kalukku (supervised by Abidin Pammu and Sitti Sahraeny). The aims of this study are to analyze how far the school environment influences the development of students’ English language proficiency at SMA Negeri 1 Kalukku, how the different sub-environments contribute to students’ speaking skills, motivation, and confidence, and what kinds of communicative challenges students face. The present study is based on Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory, Long’s Interaction Hypothesis, and Krashen’s Second Language Acquisition Theory and adopts a mixed-method approach with a sequential explanatory design. Quantitative data were collected through a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire administered to 31 purposively sampled students, while qualitative depth was obtained through semi-structured interviews. The quantitative results indicated that 80.7% of the respondents agreed that digital communication actively promotes the use of English, and 61.3% believed that the school environment promotes confidence without fear of peer teasing, while only 25.8% experienced active linguistic encouragement in their home environment. Thematic analysis qualitatively identified grammar anxiety and local social stigma as the main barriers to public communication. Despite these interpersonal challenges, students on their own used digital scaffolding to learn patterns of vocabulary and pronunciation. To summarize, the social environment is double-edged, as digital and institutional platforms accelerate fluency, but domestic gaps and peer anxieties curb actual output. Teachers are advised to focus on functional communicative competence rather than grammatical accuracy to create zero-anxiety physical immersion circles.