THE CORRELATION BETWEEN SOCIO-EMOTIONAL ASPECTS AND STUDENTS’ SPEAKING SKILLS: A STUDY AT A PRIVATE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

This study aimed to explores the correlation between socio-emotional aspects and students’ speaking skills at a private junior high school in Indonesia. The sample consisted of 30 seventh-grade students (10 male and 20 female) who were randomly selected to represent the population. Data were collected through a socio-emotional questionnaire and a speaking test. The data were analyzed using descriptive
statistics to summarize the distribution of scores and inferential statistics through the Pearson Product-Moment correlation to examine the relationship between the
two variables. The results showed that the socio-emotional scores ranged from 56 to 127, with a total score of 2548, with mean score of 84.93, and a standard deviation of 14.25. Meanwhile, the speaking scores ranged from 60 to 95, with a
total score of 2205, with mean score of 73.5, and a standard deviation of 9.9. The Pearson Product-Moment correlation analysis revealed a coefficient of 0.452, which indicates a moderate positive correlation between socio-emotional
competence and speaking performance. The significance value obtained was 0.012 (p < 0.05), confirming that the correlation is statistically significant. These findings
suggest that students with higher socio-emotional competence scores in speaking. In conclusion, socio-emotional competence contributes positively to students’ speaking ability, reinforcing its role as an important factor in
language learning.