1

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES

TOWARDS THE USE OF GOOGLE

TRANSLATE

THESIS

Submitted in Partial Fulfilment

Of the Requirements for the Degree Of

Sarjana Pendidikan

POETRY AGUSTINI

NIM : 112013048

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROGRAM

FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS

UNIVERSITAS KRISTEN SATYA WACANA

SALATIGA

2019

2

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’

ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE USE OF

GOOGLE TRANSLATE

THESIS

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of Sarjana Pendidikan

Poetry Agustini

112013048

Approved by:

Elisabet Titik Murtisari, Ph.D. Gita Hastuti, M.A.

Thesis Supervisor Thesis Examiner

3

COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any

course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best

of my knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by

any other person except where due reference is made in the text.

Copyright@ 2019. Poetry Agustini and Elisabet Titik Murtisari, Ph.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without

the permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Language Education

Program, Faculty of Language and Arts, Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana, Salatiga.

Poetry Agustini

4

UNIVERSITAS KRISTEN SATYA WACANA

PERPUSTAKAAN UNIVERSITAS

PERNYATAAN TIDAK PLAGIAT

Saya yang bertanda tangan dibawah ini:

Nama : Poetry Agustini

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Fakultas : Bahasa dan Seni Program Studi: Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris

Judul tugas akhir : SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE USE

OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE.

PROGRAM UNIVERSITAS KRISTEN SATYA WACANA

Pembimbing : 1. Elisabet Titik Murtisari, Ph.D.

2. Gita Hastuti, M.A.

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Salatiga, 20 Desember 2019 meterai Rp.6.000,-

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5

PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN AKSES

Saya yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini:

Nama : Poetry Agustini

NIM : 112013048 Email : jejhelylaku@gmail.com

Fakultas : Bahasa dan Seni Program Studi: Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris

Judul tugas akhir : SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE

USE OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE.

Dengan ini saya menyerahkan hak non-eksklusif* kepada Perpustakaan Universitas –

Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana untuk menyimpan, mengatur akses serta melakukan

pengelolaan terhadap karya saya ini dengan mengacu pada ketentuan akses tugas akhir

elektronik sebagai berikut (beri tanda pada kotak yang sesuai):

a. Saya mengijinkan karya tersebut diunggah ke dalam aplikasi Repositori

PerpustakaanUniversitas, dan/atau portal GARUDA

b. Saya tidak mengijinkan karya tersebut diunggah ke dalam aplikasi

Repositori Perpustakaan Universitas, dan/atau portal GARUDA**

* Hak yang tidak terbatashanya bagi satu pihak saja. Pengajar, peneliti, dan mahasiswa yang menyerahkan hak non-ekslusif kepada Repositori Perpustakaan Universitas saat mengumpulkan hasil karya mereka masih memiliki hak copyright atas karya tersebut.

** Hanya akan menampilkan halaman judul dan abstrak. Pilihan ini harus dilampiri dengan penjelasan/ alasan tertulis dari pembimbing TA dan diketahui oleh pimpinan fakultas (dekan/kaprodi).

Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya.

Salatiga, 20 Desember 2019

______________________________

Poetry Agustini

Mengetahui,

______________________________

____________________________

Elisabet Titik Murtisari, Ph.D. Gita Hastuti, M.A.

6

PUBLICATION AGREEMENT DECLARATION

As a member of the (UKSW) Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana academic community, I

verify that:

Name : Poetry Agustini

Student ID Number : 112013048

Study Program : English Language Education

Faculty : Language and Arts

Kind of Work : Undergraduate Thesis

In order to develop my knowledge, I agree to provide UKSW with a non-exclusive royalty

free right for my intellectual property and the contents there entitled:

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES

TOWARDS THE USE OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE. With this non-exclusive royalty free right, UKSW maintains the right to copy, reproduce, print, publish, post, display, incorporate, store in or scan into a retrieval system or database, transmit, broadcast, barter or sell my intellectual property, in whole or in part without my express written permission, as long as my name is still included as the writer. This declaration is made according to the best of my knowledge.

Made in: Salatiga

Date : 20 December 2019

Verified by signee,

Poetry Agustini

Approved by

Thesis Supervisor Thesis Examiner

Elisabet Titik Murtisari, Ph.D Gita Hastuti, M.A.

, M.Hum.

7

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover ................................................................................................................................... 1

Inside the Cover .................................................................................................................. 2

Copyright Statement ........................................................................................................... 3

Pernyataan Tidak Plagiat .................................................................................................... 4

Pernyataan Persetujuan Akses ........................................................................................... 5

Lembar Persetujuan Pembimbing ....................................................................................... 6

Table of Contents ................................................................................................................ 7

Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 9

Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 9

Literature Review ............................................................................................................. 10

Definition of Attitude ......................................................................................................... 10

Definition of Google Translate ........................................................................................... 11

Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Google Translate .............................................. 11

Previous Study about Google Translate .............................................................................. 12

The Study ........................................................................................................................... 13

Context of The Study ......................................................................................................... 13

Participants .......................................................................................................................... 13

Data Collection Instrument ................................................................................................. 13

Data Collection Procedure ................................................................................................. 15

8

Procedure of Data Analysis ............................................................................................... 15

Findings and Discussions ................................................................................................. 16

Advantages of Using Google Translate ............................................................................. 16

Disadvantages of Using Google Translate ......................................................................... 18

The Qualities of Using Google Translate ........................................................................... 19

Reasons for Using Google Translate ................................................................................. 21

How Students Use Google Translate ................................................................................. 24

Students’ Feelings of Using Google Translate .................................................................. 26

Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 28

References .......................................................................................................................... 31

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ 35

9

SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES

TOWARDS THE USE OF GOOGLE

TRANSLATE

Abstract

When we learn about a new language, we will be familar with the word “translation”

because translation is really important to learn. Besides using a printed dictionary, we can use

an online translation machine named Google Translate. Google Translate is an online

translation machine that can not only to translate words but also check grammar errors,

provide audio, give examples of how to pronounce words, and also find synonyms of the

words that are translated. Many people, including students are familiar with Google

Translate. This study focused on senior high school students’ attitudes towards the use of

Google Translate. The data was collected using questionnaire. Many of my participants

agreed that Google Translate brought advantages to help them in learning English. They

believed that Google Translate helped them to improve their English skills. Some of my

participants preffered to use a printed dictionary rather that Google Translate because of the

weaknesses that it has.

Keywords: Google Translate, EFL students, translation, online dictionary, English.

INTRODUCTION

For people nowadays, Google Translate is uncommon words. Many people such as

students, workers, and etc sometimes use it to help them in translating something. Google

Translate or GT, one of the online translation machines that can translate words, sentences

and even long passages over one hundred languages all over the world are so popular among

people instead of other translation machines. Besides that, by using Google Translate it is

faster and simpler than using a dictionary. People only need less time and get the translated

words or sentences just in some seconds. Overall, using Google Translate is much more

convenient than using a dictionary.

10

Unfortunately, Google Translate is not 100% accurate for helping us in translation,

such as the translated sentences by Google Translate is impossible or hard to understand

(Nuccio, 2013).

This research has been conducted to investigate senior high school student’s attitudes towards

the use of Google Translate. The researcher wants to know students' feelings, perceptions, and

behaviors of using Google Translate. The research question is “What is senior high school

student’s attitudes towards the use of Google Translate?”. The significance of the study is for

students, to know the other functions of Google Translate that is not just for translating

words. Google Translate can be used to checkspelling, synonyms, etc.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Attitude

According to Chailklin (2011) sociological definition of attitude looks at verbal expression as

an intention to act. Common to sociological definitions is the view that an attitude is a

"mental position with regard to a fact or state or a feeling or emotion toward a fact or state"

(Merriam Webster's Online Dictionary). Another source came from Bohner & Dickel (2011),

they stated that an attitude is an evaluation of an object of thought. Attitude objects comprise

anything a person may hold in mind, ranging from the mundane to the abstract, including

things, people, groups, and ideas.

11

Google Translate

Ghasemi & Hashemian (2011) claimed that Google Translate was first based on a

rule-based machine translation. After that, it then followed a statistical machine translation

(SMT) utilizing statistical model to determine the translation of a word in 2006. SMT uses a

bilingual text corpora which is a database of the sentences in both source language and target

language. A large group of sentences translated from for example English to Persian will be

provided for the machine to calculate the probability of the words. Another research came

from Gestanti, Murfianti & Nirmasari (2019) Google Translate is one of machine translation

that translates words based on its database.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Google Translate

According to www.dailynews.com, Google Translate has its advantages such as it is

easy and free to access. Nowadays, people do not need a computer or laptop to access Google

Translate, they can download Google Translate application from their smartphones or tablets.

On the other hand, Google Translate also has its disadvantages. Inaccuracy in grammar,

complex syntactic, semantic and pragmatic structure are caused by translation machine

"failure". This results in nonsense errors in grammar and meaning processing. Some

languages were translated more accurately than others such as French to English (Pecorao,

2012). As for Chinese to English translation, the quality of Google English was better if the

original Chinese texts to be translated were short and simple sentences (Shen, 2010).

12

Previous Study of Google Translate

Sukhwan (2014) researched the Prince of Songkla University in Thailand. The context

of her research is the impact of using GT for college students in Thailand. The purpose of her

study are to investigate the students’ frequency of GT use for different English learning

purposes, to explore their attitudes toward the use of GT for English learning purposes,

identify benefits and drawbacks of GT and how the students cope with translation problems

caused by GT, study students’ behaviors in using GT, examined differences between

translation sources of frequent GT users and non-frequent GT users, and investigate

relationships between students’ behaviors and quality of their work assisted by GT.

The participants were 125 first-year students studying an English compulsory course

at Songkhla University in the 1st

semester of the 2013 academic year. For English to Thai

Translation, the result was most students looked for and replaced appropriate words provided

by GT (80%). Over half of them read sentences and text before using GT (66,6%), edited the

GT output after finishing the translated work (66,6%), asked for a friend's help (60%)

respectively. Nearly half of them used GT only for word meanings (40%).

Google Translate is an online translation machine that can translate not only in

English, but also in many other languages. People viewed Google Translate is helpful to help

them learning languages for example English. People use Google Translate to translate

words, find synonyms, check spelling and know how to pronunce words in many languages.

This research was conducted to investigate senior high school students’ attitudes towards the

use of Gogle Translate.

13

THE STUDY

Context of the Study

The study were conducted in two schools, Christian 1 Senior High School Salatiga and

Islamic Senior High School (MAN) Salatiga. The students from those two different schools

were from language major classes, grade XI. I chose both two schools because they had

language major classes to take data by using questionnaire to the participants.

Participants

The participants were thirty-four students of Islamic Senior High School students andtwenty-

nine students of Christian 1 Senior High School. All the participants came from grade XI

with language as their major. The total number of participants was sixty-three (63) students.

Data Collection Instrument

The combination of the close-ended and open-ended questionnaire was used to get

data from the participants. The questionnaire below contains two parts. The first part is about

what students do in the relation to Google Translate and contained twenty-two statements

where the students needed tochoose one of the options given (strongly agree, strongly

disagree, neutral, agree and disagree). There were also two open-ended questions where the

students needed toexplain why they preferred to use of Google Translate. The second part of

the questionnaire was related to their behaviors of using Google Translate. Therewere six

statements where the students had to choose one of the statements using the options (never,

rarely, sometimes, often and always) and the students had to choose one of the options based

on their experiences and opinions. The statements of the questionnaire used the Indonesian

language to make it easier for the participants to understand.

14

No. Pernyataan STS TS N S SS

1. Google Translate sangat bermanfaat dalam pelajaran

bahasa Inggris di kelas.

2. Saya menggunakan Google Translate untuk memahami

apa yang terjadi di kelas bahasa Inggris.

3. Saya merasa kesulitan untuk memilih kata yang tepat

dari yang disediakan Google Translate.

4. Saya menggunakan Google Translate untuk memahami

apa yang dikatakan guru di dalam kelas bahasa Inggris.

5. Google Translate tidak memberikan terjemahan kata

yang saya inginkan.

6. Ketika saya menerjemahkan kata, saya melihat kata

yang pertama yang ada di Google Translate.

7. Saya menemukan kesalahan dalam penerjemahan

saat menggunakan Google Translate.

8. Setiap saya menggunakan Google Translate, saya

mendengarkan audio untuk mengetahui cara

pengucapan kata.

9. Saya merasa tergantung menggunakan Google

Translate.

10. Saya suka menggunakan Google Translate daripada

mesin terjemahan online lainnya.

Mengapa? Jelaskan!

11. Saya lebih suka menggunakan Google Translate

daripada kamus.

Mengapa? Jelaskan!

12. Saya merasa puas menggunakan Google Translate.

13. Google Translate membantu saya menambah kosa kata

baru.

14. Penggunaan Google Translate menghemat waktu saya. 15. Saya merasa lebih nyaman menggunakan Google

Translate untuk menulis.

16. Google Translate membuat saya malas untuk berusaha membaca bacaan dalam bahasa Inggris.

17. Saya menggunakan Google Translate untuk menerjemahkan kata.

18. Saya menggunakan Google Translate untuk menerjemahkan kalimat.

19. Saya menggunakan Google Translate untuk menerjemahkan paragraf.

15

20. Google Translate itu mudah digunakan. 21. Google Translate memberikan terjemahan yang akurat. 22. Google Translate memberikan terjemahan yang

terdengar wajar.

No.

Pernyataan

Tidak

Pernah

Jarang

Kadang

Kadang

Sering

Selalu

1. Saya menggunakan Google Translate untuk

mengetahui aktifitas di dalam kelas bahasa

Inggris.

2. Saya menggunakan Google Translate untuk

memahami apa yang terjadi di kelas bahasa

Inggris.

3. Saya menggunakan Google Translate untuk

menemukan terjemahan kata.

4. Saya menggunakan Google Translate untuk

menerjemahkan kalimat.

5. Saya menggunakan Google Translate untuk

menerjemahkan paragraf.

6. Setiap saya menggunakan Google Translate, saya

mendengarkan audio untuk mengetahui cara

pengucapan kata.

Data Collection Procedure

First, the researcher asked for two permission letters that would be given to the

headmasters of MAN Salatiga and Christian 1 Senior High School Salatiga at the FLA’s

administration office. After the researcher got the permisson to take data in language major

classes grade XI, then the researcher came to the classes, introduce herself and began to give

the questionnaire to the students. The students needed about twenty to thirty minutes to finish

the questionnaire.

Procedure of Data Analysis

The researcher used questionnaire to get the data from the participants. After they

finished, the researcher asked the students to collect all the questionnaires that they have

16

filled out. After that the researcher classified the statements of the questionnaire based on

each theme. Lastly, each theme was elaborated in the finding and discussions part below.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter discussed the findings of the data collected from students.In this study,

the research question is “what are students’ attitudes towards the use of Google Translate?”.

The results of the findings were divided into six parts: advantages of using Google Translate,

disadvantages of using Google Translate, the qualities of using Google Translate, reasons for

using Google Translate, how students use Google Translate and students’ feelings of using

Google Translate. School 1 is Christian 1 Junior High School students, and school 2 is

Islamic 1 Senior High School students.

Table 1

Advantages of Using Google Translate.

No.

Statements

Schools

SA

A

Total

N

SD

D

Total

1. Google Translate

is very helpful for

lessons in class.

School 1 3% 62% 65% 35% - - -

School 2 20.5% 44% 64.5% 32.5% - 3% 3%

13. Google Translate

helps me to get

new words.

School 1 7% 52% 59% 41% - - -

School 2 6% 59% 65% 29% - 6% 6%

14. It only needs a

brief time to use

Google Translate.

School 1 17% 62% 79% 21% - - -

School 2 15% 67% 82% 15% - 3% 3%

20. Google Translate

is easy to use.

School 1 31% 59% 90% 10% - - -

School 2 26% 56% 82% 18% - - -

17

From Table 1, as we could seethe resultswere high which means the students from

both schools thought that Google Translate is useful to help them in learning English.

The highest percentage results of both schools are Statement 20 (Google Translate is

easy to use). The students from both schools thought that Google Translate is easy to use.

This finding echoes the results of the studies done by Alhaisoni and Alhaysony (2017). Their

respondents reported that they used GT because it is free of charge, can be accessed easily

and performs translation tasks quickly. Another related study came from Chandra and Yuyun

(2018), the result of their study showed that Google Translate is the easiest/simplest way

because the students only need to type the words that they do not know and the result will

show up directly. The students from School 1and School 2 strongly agreed which has the

strongest responses. With 90% of Christian 1 Senior High School students and 82% of MAN

students agreed with the statement.The results from both schools were high, but School 1 got

a higher result than School 2.

Besides Google Translate is easy to use, the students from both schools also agreed

that Google Translate is fast to use (Statement14) with 79% of School 1 and 82% of School

2. From this statement, the School 2’s percentage seems to be higher than the School

1’sbecause the students from School 2 seemed to use Google Translate more often than

students of School 1.

Furthermore, the result also found that 65% of School 1 and 64,5% of School 2

believed that Google Translate is helpful for lessons in class (Statement 1).Maulida (2017)

stated that her student respondents used Google Translate to understand the materials given

by the lecturer. Some of the respondents often used Google Translate in translation, reading

and writing classes (Maulida, 2017). In line with this, students reported that Google Translate

helped them to get new words (Statement 13), which yielded 52% of School 1 and 59% of

18

School 2. The previous study by Chandra & Yuyun (2018), stated that the students tend to

use this tool in writing sill because that skill is a difficult skill to be acquired. Their studies

provided information about GT used by the students in EFL essay. It was found that the

students use GT in three different aspects, such as vocabulary, spelling, and grammar.

Table 2

Disadvantages of Using Google Translate.

No.

Statements

Schools

SA

A

Total

N

SD

D

Total

3. I find difficulties

to choose the

right words in

using Google

Translate.

School 1 4% 24% 28% 41% 10% 21% 31%

School 2 6% 12% 18% 50% - 32% 32%

7. I find errors

when translating

by using Google

Translate.

School 1 - 3,5% 3.5% 27.5%

48%

21% 96.5%

School 2 3% 9% 12% 41%

12%

26% 38%

9. I feel addicted to

using Google

Translate.

School 1 21% 59% 80% 13% - 7% 7%

School 2 3% 32.5% 38.5% 38% 3% 23.5% 26.5%

From Table 2, it was shown that the quality of Google Translate was high as we could

see the results of both two schools were low, only Statement 9 (the addiction of using

Google Translate) where the students from School 1 gave much higher result than the

students from School 2. The highest percentage is Statement 9 (addiction to use Google

Translate).

80% of School 1 and 38.5% of School 2 agreed that Google Translate is addictive to

use for translation. The percentage result of School 1 was far higher than the School 2.

19

Because Google Translate works quickly and easily, they are addicted to using it rather than

other tools such as a dictionary which does not work as fast as Google Translate.

The second statement came as Statement 3 (the difficulties to choose the right words

by using Google Translate) with the results 28% of School 1 and 18% of School 2. The

results were lower, much different from the previous result.

The next statement is Statement 7 (finding errors when translating by using Google

Translate) is the lowest percentage that is in Table 2 with the result 3.5% of School 1 and

12% of School 2. The students from both schools gave low results in this statement that

means the students’ belief in usingGoogle Translate was high. The related study came from

Läubi& Orrego-Carmona (2017). They stated that some translators point out that Mobile

Translation (MT) and Google Translate, in particular, are good forcertain language

combinations or specific fields, and can support the work of skilledprofessionals.

Table 3

The Qualities of Using Google Translate.

No.

Statements

Schools

SA

A

Total

N

SD

D

Total

5. Google Translate

does not give the

translation result

that I want.

School 1 - 31% 31% 52% 3% 14% 17%

School 2 3% 32.5% 35.5% 44% - 20.5% 20.5%

21. Google Translate

gives accurate

translation results.

School 1 - 7% 7% 59% - 34% 34%

School 2 - 9% 9% 47% 9% 35% 44%

22. Google Translate

gives natural

translation results.

School 1 - 24% 24% 72.5% - 3.5% 3.5%

School 2 3% 23.5% 26.5% 53% - 20.5% 20.5%

20

From Table 3, the qualities of Google Translate were not perceived very positively,

which means the students from both schools were not much satisfied with using Google

Translate because of some weaknesses that were written in the statements above.

The strongest results came from Statement 5 (Google Translate does not give the

desired translation results) with only 31% of School 1 and 32.5% of School 2. As we could

see the results from both schools were almost similar. This finding is related to the previous

study by Santoso (2010) as cited by Octaviani and Yuyun (2018) stated another drawback,

commenting that GT is unable to handle idiom or figurative language. All of their

respondents agreed that GT gave an inaccurate result in terms of translating sentences.

Despite of it, their respondents also claimed that they used GT mostly for vocabulary on a

word level because the GT result is inaccurate if it is dealing with a longer sentence.

The second highest statement is Statement 22 (Google Translate gives natural

translation result). The results were 24% of School 1 and 26.5% of School 2.We could

conclude by seeing the result that is Google Translate was still seen to produceodd translation

results. This could be concluded that the students from both of the schools were not very

satisfied with using Google Translate to help them in translation, because the students still

were not sure about the accuracy and inaccuracy of the translation results by using Google

Translate.

The lowest statement in Table 3 is Statement 21 (Google Translate gives accurate

translation results) with 7% of School 1 and 9% of School 2. A related study by Ambawani

(2014) stated that however, instead of its accurateness, translation produced by Google

Translator is very helpful as pre-translation.

From Table 4, the results of the reasons for using Google Translate by the students

from the two schools were in average to low. The highest percentages were 59% (Statement

17) and 52% (Statement 11) both of which came from the students from School 1. The main

21

reasons why the students from both schools used Google Translate were they wanted to

translate words, also it worked faster than dictionaries.

The students from School 1 and School 2 viewed that the students used Google

Translate to translate sentences (Statement 18) which has the strongest result, 48,5% of

School 1 and 44% of School 2. As we could see from the results, many students from both

schools used Google Translateto translate sentences. A previous study from Maulida (2017)

showed that some students as her respondents often used Google Translate to help them in

translation, writing and reading in English. They preferred Google Translate to a dictionary

because Google Translate is faster and easier to use. Even though Google Translate has some

weaknesses, they still use Google Translate and it is also useful to help them in English

lessons.

Table 4

Reasons for Using Google Translate.

No.

Statements

Schools

SA

A

Total

N

SD

D

Total

2. I use Google

Translate to

understand the

activities in the

classroom.

School 1 - 38% 38% 45% - 17% 17%

School 2 9% 35% 44% 41% 6% 9% 15%

4. I use Google

Translate to

understand what

the teacher says

in the English

lesson.

School 1 - 10.5%

10.5%

55% 10.5% 24%

34.5%

School 2 - 20.5% 20,5% 32.5% 12% 35% 47%

10. I prefer to use

Google

Translate to

other online

translation

machines.

School 1 7% 21% 28% 45% 3.5% 24%

27.5%

School 2 3% 35% 38% 44% 3% 15% 18%

22

11. I prefer to use

Google

Translate to a

dictionary.

School 1 7% 45% 52% 34% 7% 7% 14%

School 2 3% 18% 21% 50% 3% 26% 29%

17. I use Google

Translate to

translate words.

School 1 4% 55% 59% 41% - - -

School 2 9% 23% 32% 56% 3% 9% 12%

18. I use Google

Translate to

translate

sentences.

School 1 10.5% 38% 48.5% 41% - 10.5% 10.5%

School 2 - 44% 44% 44% 3% 9% 12%

19. I use Google

Translate to

translate

paragraphs.

School 1 7% 14% 21% 31% 7% 34% 41%

School 2 - 29.5% 29.5% 41% 6% 23.5%

29.5%

38% of School 1 and 44% of School 2 agreed that Google Translate to understand the

activities in the classroom (Statement 2). Theresult of School 2 is higher than the School 1.

This can be done, for example when the teacher asked them to practice something in English,

or the teacher asked the students to do some exercises in their English books. This suggests

Google Translate may assist students in engaging in the day to day lessons.

The second strongest statement is Statement 17 (using Google Translate to translate

words) which 21% of School 1 and 59% of School 2 agreed with this statement. The

difference is quite far, with School 2 which was higher than in School 1. More than half the

number of students from School 2 used Google Translate to translate words more than the

School 1’s students did.A previous study came from Valijärvi and Tarsoly (2019). One of

their respondents reported that Google Translate is useful when there are many new words in

the text and only using it to get a general understanding of what is going on. Another

respondent stated that h/she occasionally used it to translate single words, like a dictionary as

it is easier and quicker than using a paper dictionary. This shows that Google Translate is

favored for its convenience.

23

Statement 11 (preference for using Google Translate than a dictionary) got 52% of

School 1 and 21% of school 2. In this statement, the result of School 1 was higher than the

School 2. Many students from School 1 felt more convenient to use Google Translate rather

than a dictionary. The reasons why they preferred to use Google Translate based on some of

my respondents from Schol 1 were "faster, more practical and easier" compared with a

printed dictionary.

28% of School 1 and 38% of School 2 agreed with Statement 10 (preference for using

Google Translate than other online translation machines). In this statement, School 2 got a

higher percentage result rather than School 1 which was higher in the previous statement.

Some students from School 2 believed that Google Translate translated better than other

online translation machines. The students from School 2 got some reasons for using Google

Translate such as “faster, easier, helpful, accessible and more accurate”. Two other students

from School 2 stated that Google Translate came with many languages so they could translate

in many words besides English and Indonesian.

The next statement is for Statement 19 (using Google Translate to translate

paragraphs). School 1 got 21% and School 2 got 29.5%. The difference was relatively

significant between those two schools. As we could see students from School 2 used more

Google Translate rather than the students from School 1. The possible reason why the

students from School 2 or might be from both schools used Google Translate to translate

paragraphs was because when the students used Google Translate to translate paragraphs,

sometimes the translation results are not in accordance. This might affect the students'

language learning because of the errors that Google Translate makes in the translation.

10.5% of school 1 and 20.5% of School 2 agreed with Statement 4 (using Google

Translate to understand what the teacher says in the classroom). Only a few from students of

School 1 used Google Translate to translate what the teacher says when h/she used English,

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but more students from School 2 used it in the same case. It seemed that students from School

1 did not find many difficulties when their teacher spoke using English, but the students from

School 2 found the opposite thing. The main factor might be the teacher of School 1 used

English more often to communicate with his or her students in the classroom rather than the

teacher of School 2. That is why they used Google Translate in the English classroom. A

study of Valijärvi and Tarsoly (2019) reported their respondents have learned how to use

Google Translate in class. These classes have helped them understand the limitation of

Google Translate. Thus they will use it more carefully. It was shown that Google Translate

was helpful for the students to understand the activities in the classroom.

Table 5

How Students Use Google Translate.

No.

Statements

Schools

SA

A

Total

N

SD

D

Total

6. When I translate a

word by using

Google Translate, I

choose the first

translated word

among others.

School 1 3.5% 24% 27.5% 59% 3.5% 10% 13.5%

School 2 9% 12% 21% 41% 12% 26% 38%

8. Every time I use

Google Translate, I

listen to the audio

to know how to

pronounce it.

School 1 3.5% 10% 13.5% 65.5% - 21% 21%

School 2 6% 29% 35% 41% 6% 18% 24%

From Table 5 that is about how the students use Google Translate, the total

percentage of Statement 6 and Statement 8is surprisingly similar. For Statement 6 (choosing

the first translated word among others when using Google Translate), the result from both of

the two schools were 27.5% of School 1 and 21% of School 2. In general, when we translate

25

a word using Google Translate, we often get the translation results that are more than one.

For example, the translation results of the word “mendapat” in Indonesian and is translated

into English,get, have and receive. The students from both schools only tend to notice the

translated word that is in the Google Translation box. Google Translate might give more than

one translation results depending on the word(s) they want to translate, but the studentsmight

less notice or they might not notice at all to the other translated results which are under the

Google Translate’s translation box. The students might think that the first translation result is

the most accurate word,so they chose the first translated word than other translation results

when using Google Translate.

Statement 8 from Table 5 (listening to the audio to know the pronunciation when

using Google Translate) showed the result of 13.5% of School 1 and 35% of School 2. Only a

few students from School 1 used the audio to know the pronunciation, but more studentswho

were from School 2 did the same. A teacher’s intervention might be necessary to encourage

students to do this. If the students find difficulties in pronunce certain words, the students

could simply use Google Translate and it will provide the audio that students could listen to.

Maulida (2017) stated that if people want to learn a foreign language, for example, English,

especially how to pronounce words in English, Google Translate could be used. Besides

listening to the audio, the students could also translate using their voices so the students do

not need to type what they want to translate.

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Table 6

Students’ Feelings of Using Google Translate.

No.

Statements

Schools

SA

A

Total

N

SD

D

Total

12. I feel satisfied with

using Google

Translate.

School 1 - 31% 31% 69% - - -

School 2 6% 23% 29% 56% - 15% 15%

15. I feel more confident

in using Google

Translate in writing.

School 1 7% 24% 31% 52% - 17% 17%

School 2 3% 18% 21% 53% 3% 23% 26%

16. Google Translate

makes me lazy to

read English text.

School 1 14% 45% 59% 14% 10% 17% 27%

School 2 - 26% 26% 23.5% 18% 32.5% 50.5%

As we can see from Table 6, the students from both schools tended to be neutral in

regards to their feelings when using Google Translate. The students from school 1 gave 59%

in Statement 16(Google Translate makes students lazy to read English text) which was the

highest result in this table. The main problem is the students might probably think when they

used Google Translate, it made them lazy to learn more in English.

The highest percentage is Statement 16 (Google Translate makes students lazy to read

English text) with 59% of School 1 and 26% of School 2 agreed with statement 16. The

difference was quite big from both schools. Few students from School 2 thought so, but still

more amount of them used Google Translate. This case was the opposite of the students from

School 1, who mainly thought that Google Translate made them lazy to read English text, and

just a few of the students who still used Google Translate. It is one of several machine

translations most commonly used by people around the world to translate texts over 90

different languages. Not only can it translate words, but also phrases, sections of a text, or a

27

web page. (Napitupulu, 2017). What made the students agreed that Google Translate could

make them lazy in reading English texts because Google Translate could translate the English

text into Indonesian just in a single click. The students viewed that using a printed dictionary

could reduce their laziness because they needed to look up the dictionary to find the meaning

of the words. In this statement, some of the students from both schools liked to use a

dictionary more than using Google Translate.

The second statement is Statement 12 (the satisfaction of using Google Translate)

which brought 24% of School 1 and 18% of School 2. The results were very low. The

students from both schools seemed not satisfied enough when using Google Translate

because, for example, students still found errors when translating something when using

Google Translate. This case is related to the previous study from Valijärvi and Tarsoly

(2019). One of their respondents stated that Google Translate is less accurate than a

dictionary. It works with statistics, it doesn't know the languages. It has fewer explanations

and examples than a dictionary, so, it is not sure if you can trust it.The translation result by

using Google Translate sometimes made the students confused because the translation result

of using Google Translate might be hard to understand. The students might think that the

translation result by using Google Translate seemed odd and unnatural.

The lowest percentage in Table 6 is Statement 15 (confidence in using Google

Translate for writing) with a total of 31% of School 1 and 21% of School 2. The results were

also low. One of the factors which influenced this case might be the errors that occurred

when translating by using Google Translate. One of my respondents from School 2 (student

22) reported that he or she was more confident of using printed dictionaries rather than using

Google Translate because using dictionaries makes him or her to read more in English also

using dictionaries reduce his or her laziness in reading English.Medvedev (2016) as cited by

Chandra and Yuyun (2018) stated that Google Translate is unable to handle a longer

28

sentence. If it translates a longer sentence, usually this tool gives a word-per-word translation.

Santoso (2010) as cited by Chandra and Yuyun (2018) even mentioned that this tool cannot

handle idiom or figurative language. Furthermore, Santoso (2010) added that the length of the

text determines the quality of the product translated; the shorter the text, the better the result.

Most beginners said they would always use Google Translate when trying to write something

in the target language. The more experienced a student was in learning languages, the less

likely he or she was to rely on Google Translate (Valijärvi and Tarsoly, 2019).

CONCLUSION

Based on the data that I got from the participants from both two schools, it can be

concluded that the students agreed that Google Translate (GT) has many advantages for them

in learning English even though there were some negative issues that came by using Google

Translate, one of the examples was the errors that Google Translate made in translation.

Despite it, the students believed that Google Translate is helpful. It helps students in English

such as translations and many English class activities. However, some of the students still

used printed dictionaries beside Google Translate to guide the students in translation too.

How fast and how easy Google Translate worked made the students from both

schools enjoyed to use Google Translate in the classroom. Besides helping in translation, the

students used Google Translate to know what their teachers said in English or to know the

activities in the classroom. The students regarded Google Translate very effective to help

them in the classroom activities.

Students often found some weaknesses of Google Translate in translation process for

instance, Google Translate could not be able to translate long sentences well, which means

Google Translate still made mistakes in translating long sentences. Another weakness was

29

Google Translate could not translate words that have multiple meanings and functions either.

This could be because Google Translate operates on statistics rather than rules (Nadhianti,

2016). Vidhayasai et al. (2015) added that Google Translate tends to translate word-for-word,

not a sense-for-sense translation pattern. Although Google Translate works with word for

word translation, some mistakes can still be found especially for words that have multiple

meanings and functions. As the precautions for this problem, students must be careful when

using Google Translate. They must be aware of the culture and semiotics of both original and

translated text when they use Google Translate (Spreeman, 2017).

I think Google Translate for high school students was good enough. Based on my

participants that were all senior high school students, they felt satisfied with what Google

Translate had. Despite its weaknesses, the students still used Google Translate because it is a

multitasking online translation machine. It could not only translate texts, but also check

grammar errors, give new words or vocabulary, and provide audio to know the pronunciation

of the words. Those things could not be done by printed dictionaries so the students preferred

to use Google Translate than printed dictionaries.

Last, I would like to recommend Google Translate for high school students because

Google translate is simpler than printed dictionaries. Google Translate worked quicker and

easier rather than printed dictionaries. Google Translate did not need much time to access.

The students can use Google Translate anytime and anywhere, it can also be used in

classroom activities. Google Translate brought many advantages too that might not be found

when using printed dictionaries. It could be concluded that Google Translate helped much for

high school students in learning English.

The limitation my study is I made two parts of the questionnaire, but only the first

part of it that has been formulated as the data of this thesis. The suggestion for this further

30

research, I would recommend students or teachers to use questionnaire to collect data in such

of thesis like this, because it would be easier to formulate, and the data that would be

collected is more specific.

31

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to say Alhamdulillahi rabbil ‘alamin, I could finish my thesis in this semester.

First, I would like to say thank you very much to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala, my beloved

God and everything. Without Allah, I could not finish my thesis successfully. Thank you very

much for hearing and granting all my prayers. Second, thank you very much for my beloved

father, Agus Putra Udayana and my beloved mother, Dyah Nourviera Pramesvary for all the

prayers, supports and everything that they have given to me. I love you mom and dad. I also

want to say thank you for my only little sister, Ni Gusti Ayu Diany, S.Psi who graduated first

before me, she helped me some when I was still in the process of finishing this thesis. Third, I

would like to say thank you very much to my beloved grandfather and grandmother from my

mother’s side who live in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta for all the supports and prayers that

they always do for me. I hope I could see them when I graduate in February. Fourth, I would

say thank you for my grandmother from my father’s side who lives in Palembang, also for the

supports and prayers. After I get a job, I would like to visit Palembang to meet her. Fifth, I

would like to say thank you for all my beloved big family from my mother’s side that live in

East and South of Jakarta, who had helped me financially to study at Universitas Kristen

Satya wacana Salatiga until I could finish this thesis to get my bachelor degree. Thank you

very much for my beloved big family from my father’s side that live in South Jakarta,

Palembang and Bali Island. Sixth, I would say thank you very much for my “wali studi”

Bapak Joseph Ernest Mambu, Ph.D, my thesis supervisor Ibu Titik Murtisari, Ph.D and Ibu

Gita Hastuti M.A. as my second reader who have giuded me in finishing this undergraduate

thesis. The last, I would like to say thank you very much for all my “thirteeners” friends,

especially for my best friends in Faculty of Language and Arts: Elsa S.Pd, Tabita Ekasari

S.Pd, Fransiska Ika Sofiati S.Pd, Irene Rosa Nindyaputri S.Pd and Ketty I.O. Tamelan S.Pd

36

for all the laughters, happiness, togetherness that we had when we were still as FLA students.

I could never forget what we had ever been through so far. You are all the best. I love you

lots!