The Perceived Influence of Student’s Exchange Experience towards Students’ English-Speaking Performance

Student exchange programs became increasingly popular among university students, where the students can explore new experiences outside their college life. And it is no exception to students of the English language education department of UIN Ar-Raniry. This study aims to investigate the students’ perception of the student exchange experience’s perceived influence on their speaking performance. The participants of the study were eight students of the English language education department of UIN Ar-Raniry, who had participated in some exchange programs with diverse backgrounds. This research used purposive sampling to opt the participants who fulfilled the criteria of this study. The researcher used qualitative research by using semi-structured interview via telephone to obtain the data. The results of the study revealed that students detected some challenges in English speaking namely; un-confidence, vocabulary problem, and misunderstanding. Nevertheless, they had several ways to resolve their challenges by practicing, habituating, and cooperating with peers. Furthermore, students perceived that the exchange experiences influenced students’ speaking-performance on some aspects, those are; improving pronunciation ability, enhancing fluency, better used of vocabulary, better used of grammar, and improving students’ comprehensibility. Moreover, students also gained secondary influence on their personal advantages such as international experience, the opportunity to expose to English, fostering self-confidence, and gaining new insight. From this study, the researcher hoped that the university more opens and considers student exchange as a forum that has the potential to increase global competitiveness among students.