Filled Pauses Used by the Students During the Discussions in Speaking Class of the English Department of STKIP PGRI Sumbar

During communication in speaking class, many students use filled pauses in the discussions. Filled pauses can facilitate communication if students use it properly. However, they have some problems by using many filled pauses. The research aimed to know the use of filled pauses during the discussions in speaking class in terms of the kinds and the reasons of using it. The design of the research was descriptive qualitative that the purpose was to describe the use of filled pauses during the discussions in speaking class. This research was conducted at STKIP PGRI SUMBAR. The participants of this research were the students in speaking 2 classes of the English Department enrolled in academic year 2012/2013. Instruments of this research were observation checklist, interview, and recording. The data were analyzed based on some experts. The findings of this research showed that there were two kinds of filled pauses that were used by the students those were unlexicalized and lexicalized. The students‟ reasons of using filled pauses were they wanted to give a signal that speaking was not yet finished, thought what to say next, clarified sentences, speaking controlled, and a sign that they needed a help. It can be concluded that the use of many filled pauses can disturb the fluency in speaking and give the effect to the listeners‟ concentration. Thus, the students should minimize the use of filled pauses.