Students’ Perceptions of Language Learning Environment and Their
Engagement in EFL Learning
Eva Meidi Kulsum
1,2
, Dadan Nurulhaq
1
, Asep Jamaludin
1
and Agus Salim Mansyur
1
1
UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung, Bandung, Indonesia
2
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: Students’ Perceptions, Language Learning Environment, Students Engagement.
Abstract: This study reported students’ perceptions of language learning environment developed by one of the
universities in Bandung in the form of dormitory project and their engagement in EFL learning. This study
employed the qualitative descriptive method. A questionnaire adapted from McGhee (2007) and semi-
structured interview using guidelines from Jones (2009) about the degree to which students are engaged in a
learning experience was attempted to find out the answer to the problems proposed. The result of this study
indicated that 74% students had a good perception of a language learning environment designed by the
dormitory and most of them had the very high level of engagement in EFL learning. The findings of this
research suggested the dormitory to improve the system so that the shortcomings felt by the students could be
resolved.
1 INTRODUCTION
It is now becoming an obligatory to master more than
one foreign languages because learning a foreign
language is considered as one of the current demands
for educators either teachers or students, particularly
at university level. However, some universities in
Indonesia design programs to provide students at the
university level to learn foreign languages. One of the
programs is contrived in the form of language
dormitory project by one of the universities in
Bandung, English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
Learning is the preeminent program of the dormitory.
Since its early beginning, the dormitory has tried to
create a language learning environment where it is
expected to be an effective place for students to stay
and study altogether with other students who also
have the same intention to learn a foreign language.
Concerning the real application of language
learning environment, the dormitory tries to teach
English to students and attempts to carry out and
overcome the difficulties in EFL learning. Some of
the efforts are not only giving much time allotted for
learning in the classroom, but also designing English
conversation, vocabulary enrichment, public
speaking, and language day programs. It is clearly
indicated that there is a high orientation of the
dormitory to increase students’ engagement in EFL
learning. This is in line with Ayrton and Moseley
(2010) who stated that “the interaction between
student behaviors and institutional conditions are key
factors in determining the nature and quality of
student engagement”. In other words, it can be
identified that learning environment significantly
affected students’ engagement. What students
perceive of language learning environment will
automatically impact to their engagement in EFL
learning, Jones (2009:23) added that “A key to
increase student engagement is finding efficient ways
to measure it. When something is measured,
summarized, and reported, it becomes important, and
people pay attention”. Thus, this research would like
to try to investigate students’ perceptions of language
learning environment developed by the dormitory and
to analyze their engagement in EFL learning.
Understanding students’ perceptions of language
learning environment and their engagement in EFL
learning may provide educators with additional
information on how to best support and engage
students with an effective language learning
environment and overcome students’ difficulties in
EFL learning.
Kulsum, E., Nurulhaq, D., Jamaludin, A. and Mansyur, A.
Students’ Perceptions of Language Learning Environment and Their Engagement in EFL Learning.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education (ICSE 2017) - Volume 1, pages 457-462
ISBN: 978-989-758-316-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
457

2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Language Learning Environment
The environment is simply defined in Webster’s
dictionary (p.416) cited in Hodge and Townsend
(2007) as “the aggregate of social and cultural
conditions that influence the life of the individual”. In
relation to this research, the thing that is influenced is
the language acquisition of an individual since it is
known that environment gives a big influence to the
individual language improvement. This is in line with
Wang (2009) who believed that linguistics
environment for language acquisition is very
important. People who abroad or often speak a
foreign language usually “very motivated, they have
a pressing desire to communicate and to get their
meaning across”. Thus, there will be so many
benefits can be felt by foreign language learners in
learning language supported by an effective
environment. Besides, it can make them easier in
acquiring language that they wish to learn since they
have many opportunities to speak and experiment
with the language.
On the other hand, most foreign language learners
who learn in formal education get many problems as
the example they cannot be themselves while they are
speaking, they also tend to be nervous some may be
afraid of making mistakes and others may forget even
easy words. According to Wang (2004) there are so
many reasons for that condition, one of the most
important reasons would be a language learning
environment which is previously mentioned as the
variable which gives many influences to the language
learner acquisition and improvement. However, the
dormitory designed programs to overcome those
students’ difficulties by building a language learning
environment where students are expected to express
themselves in learning English freely and
continuously. There were several programs of this
dormitory which focused on overcoming students’
difficulties in learning English as a foreign language
at university level. Those are: a) vocabulary
enrichment b) conversation c) language day d) public
speaking and e) English class. Those programs were
expected to facilitate students with an effective
language learning environment.
Knowing how students perceive the environment
designed by the dormitory using McGhee (2007)
instrument, which has been adapted to the real
condition of the dormitory, about learning
environment is appropriate with the aim of this study.
The instrument has 4 sub-scales to be measured, those
are: to know the students’ perception of positive
environment, negative environment, their personal
beliefs, and global evaluation involving a
combination of the first four items of the standard
course evaluation form (the course as a whole, the
course content, the instructor’s contribution to the
course, and the instructor’s effectiveness in teaching
the subject matter).
2.2 Students’ Engagement
“The first year experience in higher education is
known to be important to students’ outcomes, such as
retention, persistence, completion and achievement”
(Hillman, 2005).
Statement above shows how important first year
experience in influencing students’ achievement. One
factor that influences students’ first year experience
is engagement as Kearsley and Shneiderman (1998)
explain that engagement is a term to describe times
where students are meaningfully engaged in learning
activities through interaction with others and
worthwhile tasks. Various definitions about students’
engagement have been suggested. Kuh et al. (2008:
542) states “Student engagement represents both the
time and energy students invest in educationally
purposeful activities and the effort institutions devote
to using effective educational practices”. Chapman
(2003) offers “one—students’ cognitive investment
in, active participation in, and emotional commitment
to their learning”. The Australian Council of
Educational Research (ACER) proposes another:
“students’ involvement with activities and conditions
likely to generate high quality learning” (ACER,
2008, p. VI). Those definitions only focused on the
process of engagement not on what factor affects
engagement itself. However, Schuetz (2008)
emphasize students’ motivation and effort as key
factors in engagement. Umbach and Wawrzynski
(2005) highlight the way educators practice and relate
to their students, and Porter (2006) proposes the roles
of institutional structures and cultures. Concerning
those key factors in engagement, Leach and Zepke
(2008) introduce four strands of students’
engagement, those are: motivation and agency,
interaction with peers and teachers, institutional
structures and systems, and external influences.
Those strands are tabulated below (Leach and Zepke,
2008: 2):
Indicators that can measure those extents include
attendance rate and participation rates in
extracurricular activities. He also suggested that
students need to be engaged before they can apply
higher order, creative thinking skills. They learn most
effectively when the teacher makes sense and
ICSE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education
458

meaning of the curriculum material being taught. This
can only happen if the teacher has created a safe
learning environment that encourages students to
meet challenges and apply their skills to real-world,
unpredictable situations inside and outside of school.
Besides, Jones (2009) also proposed details about
the degree to which students are engaged in a learning
experience. There are five strategies for measuring
perception of engagement. For each aspect, questions
are provided to encourage conversations with
students, those are: Individual attention: students feel
comfortable in seeking help and asking questions,
clarity of learning: students can describe the purpose
of the lesson or unit, meaningfulness of work:
students find the work interesting, challenging, and
connected to learning, rigorous thinking, students
work on complex problems, create original solutions,
and reflect on the quality of their work, performance
orientation: students understand what quality work is
and how it will be assessed. They also can describe
the criteria by which their work will be evaluated.
Those aspects then will be used as the guideline to
conduct an interview.
3 METHOD
This research method employed qualitative
descriptive method by taking questionnaire and semi-
structured interview, of which this method
highlighted explicitly about how language learning
environment developed by a language dormitory in
one of Universities in Bandung affected students’
engagement in EFL learning which occurred
naturally to the students who learned and stayed in the
dormitory. English Dormitory of State University in
Bandung was chosen as the research site of this study.
The dormitory is designed to provide students at the
first year of study to learn English as a foreign
language. This condition is very fit with this study
because “the first year experience in higher
education is known to be important to students’
outcomes such as retention, persistence, completion
and achievement” (Hilman, 2005). 20 students were
selected using purposive sampling technique as a
subject of this study. Questionnaire adapted from
McGhee (2007) and semi-structured interview using
guidelines from Jones (2009) about the degree to
which students are engaged in a learning experience
were attempted to find out the answer to the questions
mentioned above. There were 12 statements to be
answered by respondents and 5 important points as
the guideline to conduct an interview. The data
calculated manually by calculating the percentages
and mean scores of the student responses to infer the
data findings. The last, the analysis of each data
collection was synthesized and discussed to answer
the research questions. While the data from the
interview was transcribed, coded, scored, analyzed
and interpreted. It was also used to support the data
from questionnaire in order to get more
comprehensive information.
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The overall analysis of the 12 items indicated that
74% students have good perception of a language
learning environment designed by the dormitory. For
more explicit explanation, it will be discussed as
follows:
4.1 Positive Environment
There were five statements to see the students’
perceptions of language learning environment design
by the dormitory focusing on the positive
environment. The result showed that ≥80% students
felt that the dormitory provided them an environment
for free and open expression of ideas, opinions, and
beliefs in learning English (showed by mean score 4
in item 1) and it is also considered by them as a
comfortable place to learn English (mean score 4,1 in
item 3). In items 2 and 4 students were asked about
their opinions about the assessment and equality
assigned and treated by the instructors (all people
involved in their learning process such as
organizational structures, teachers, and staff), it was
then resulted only ≥64% students who gave positive
perceptions while the rest (36% students) perceived
negatively. Despite that 78% students still felt that the
instructors made them feel welcome in the dormitory.
Figure 1: Students’ perceptions of language learning
environment: positive environment.
4
3.2
4.1
3.3
3.9
0
1
2
3
4
5
1 2 3 4 5
Mean Scores
Items
Students’ Perceptions of Language Learning Environment and Their Engagement in EFL Learning
459

4.2 Negative Environment
At this stage, students were asked about their
perception of learning environment focused on
negative environment. Students were given three
statements that indicate that the dormitory reflected
bad environment that made them uncomfortable to
stay even they felt isolated in the dormitory. The
result from questionnaire indicated that ≥72% of
students did not agree to these three statements. See
figure below:
Figure 2. Students’ perceptions of language learning
environment: negative environment.
4.3 Standard Global Evaluation
The last sub-scale is standard global evaluation, in
this section students were asked about their
perceptions of the course (programs) as a whole, the
course (programs) content, the instructor’s
contribution to the course, and the instructor’s
effectiveness in teaching the subject matter, portrayed
in table 1 below:
Table 1: This caption has one line so it is centered.
No
Statements
Mean
Score
1
2
3
4
The course (program) as a whole
was:
The course (program) content
was:
The instructor’s contribution to
the course was:
The instructor’s effectiveness in
teaching the subject matter was:
4
3,7
3,3
3,7
From the table above, it could be identified that
students had very good perceptions of the programs
designed by the dormitory to overcome their
difficulties in learning English. Those programs were
English conversation, vocabulary enrichment,
English class, language day, public speaking. The
second highest score was placed by the content of the
programs and the instructors’ effectiveness in
teaching the subject matter. 74% of students have a
good perception of any content submitted. According
to them, the content delivered in every program in
accordance with which they need, for example, in the
English class program. The content which was taught
in this program was reading, writing and speaking.
Unfortunately listening cannot be taught optimally
because of inadequate facilities. Similarly, with the
instructor's effectiveness in teaching the subject
matter only 26% of students who have a bad
perception of it. Not only a great content, but also it
is offset by the instructor's effectiveness in teaching
the subject matter. The last was the instructor’s
contribution to the course (programs), it decreased
slightly compared to the instructors ' effectiveness. It
was caused by the lack of the dormitory Manager
involvement in the students’ progress of language.
4.4 Students’ Engagement in EFL
Learning
To know the extents of students ' engagement in EFL
learning, this research used an interview guideline
adopted from Jones (2009) there were some aspects
that needed to be considered, those were: students’
individual attention, clarity of learning,
meaningfulness of work, rigorous thinking,
performance orientation.
After conducting semi-structured interview, it
was resulted that the average students have a very
high level of engagement. To be more clearly the
following table described the whole level of students’
engagement in EFL learning.
Table 2: Students’ engagement level in EFL learning.
No
Students'
Engagement Level
Range
F
Percentage
1
Very High
25-21
4
80%
2
High
20-16
1
20%
3
Medium
15-11
0
0
4
Low
10-6
0
0
5
Very Low
5-0
0
0
The table 2 showed the students experienced a
very high engagement in EFL learning (4 out of 5
students or 80% of the total respondents) and high
engagement (1 out of 5 students or 20% of the total
respondents). These results supported prior study.
Ayrton and Moseley (2010) research which resulted
that “the interaction between student behaviors and
institutional conditions are key factors in determining
the nature and quality of student engagement” it was
indicated that learning environment significantly
3.9
3.6
3.8
0
1
2
3
4
5
6 7 8
Mean Score
ICSE 2017 - 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education
460

affected students’ engagement. So did this research,
it was resulted that students were facilitated by a
language learning environment which was expected
to be an effective place for students to learn English
so that they had a very high quality of engagement in
EFL learning.
As explained by Jones (2009) Individual attention
is the first aspect should be considered in determining
the quality of students’ engagement. In this stage,
students would feel comfortable in seeking help and
asking questions. It was showed by student 3 when
she got difficulties in learning English she did try
solving her problem by herself then if she still could
not solve it or she needed extra help, she did ask the
manager of dormitory which she considered that they
could help her.
STUDENTS 2
Difficulties:
1) “I have difficulties in public speaking because I
often felt nervous and got lost of words even I
forgot how to pronounce”
2) “In English class program, sometimes I did not
understand what the lecturer said......Because of
the lack of my vocabulary and grammar I
sometimes got lost of understanding”
Solving problem:
1) I often did practice with my friends and if I have
to be a speaker in public speaking program I
asked the manager of dormitory who handle the
public speaking program to check my public
speaking text.
2) I sat in the first line of students’ seat in order to
get more comprehension.
The second aspect is clarity of learning which
meant students could describe the purpose of the
lesson or unit. This was more comprehensive than
describing the activity based on the lesson of the day
involving the questions: What are you working on?
What are you learning from this work? Showed by
student 1 below:
STUDENT 1
“I learnt a lot, from English class program I learnt
everything about speaking, writing, and reading. In
vocabulary enrichment I got new vocabularies.
Conversation and public speaking programs are
almost the same program which have aim to increase
students’ ability in speaking but public speaking was
more formal than conversation which made me little
bit nervous. While language day program did not run
well, and it was not an effective program... Above all,
the programs help students to learn English.”
The third is meaningfulness of work which referred to
the condition where students found the work
interesting, challenging, and connected to learning
involving questions: What are you learning? Is this
work interesting to you? Why you are learning this?
Do you know? Showed by student 3 below:
STUDENTS 3
At the first time, I joint the programs only caused
by the rule which obliged all the students to join the
programs. Then I realized that it was significantly
increase my English knowledge. And finally, little bit
I know how to speak English well because of joining
the programs.
The forth step is rigorous thinking where students
work on complex problems, create original solutions,
and reflect on the quality of their work. How
challenging is this work? In what ways do you have
the opportunity to be creative? Showed by students 4
below:
STUDENT 4
“Definitely, more over there are so many people
who are more capable in English than me. It
encourage me to be better and able to speak English
fluently. “
The last is performance orientation which
indicated whether or not students understand what
quality work is and how it will be assessed. They also
can describe the criteria by which their work will be
evaluated involving questions: How do you know you
have done good work? What are some elements of
quality work? Showed by student 5 below:
STUDENT 5
“So far, thing that has been done is only joining
all the program provided seriously, giving all my
attentions and having a note to the things which I
considered important... Of course not, there are so
many things that I need to know.”
5 CONCLUSIONS
Students were more motivated towards instrumental
than integrative as they hoped in achieving
instrumental rewards in the form of grades,
achievements, performance, future life, and good job.
The mean scores of integrative were 3.1 or (77.5%
students) and instrumental 3.5 (87.5% students)
which meant most of the students learning English
Students’ Perceptions of Language Learning Environment and Their Engagement in EFL Learning
461

attached to their language learning out comes and
future achievements than integrative purposes.
The data analysis showed that their attitudes
towards English were placed in the high positions
which had mean score 3.7 or about 93% of students
had good attitudes, while the rest (7%) had bad
attitudes. It is followed by attitudes towards English
learning which indicated that 85% students had good
attitude towards its learning. While ≤ 80% students
had good attitudes towards its teacher and people. In
total, there are only 17.5 % students have bad
attitudes and 82.5% students have good attitudes (for
all sub-scales of attitudes).
The findings of this research suggest the
important role of teachers as a major factor of student
achievement in learning in order to build students’
motivations and attitudes towards English, since they
are considered as predictors of success in learning
foreign language.
Further research should look into another
important variables that contribute to individual
differences such as cognitive variables and
personality. In order to give more comprehension to
the investigation of individual differences that often
experienced, perhaps always, by the learners.
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