Jurnal Register Vol 7 No 1 2014.pdf. 122 Pages ..... In this phase the child started to develop his independency by his ...
REGISTER
Language and Language Yeaching Journals
Vol. 7, No. 1, Juni 2014
ISSN 1979-8903
Table of Contents
Psychological Structural Analysis to “A Child Called It” by Dave Pelzer Endang Susilowati.......................................................................................................1 Students’ Perceptions on a Good Tertiary Foreign Language Teacher Siti Tarwiyah and Nadiah Ma’mun............................................................................13 The Impact of Structural Competence Towards Speaking Competence of The Fourth Semester Students of English Department of Tarbiyah Faculty IAIN Walisongo Semarang in the Academic Year of 2010/2011 Muhammad Nafi Annury..........................................................................................42 The Influence of Digital Games Based Learning on Students’ Learning Outcomes and Motivation Rahmat Yusny and Sarah Fitri.................................................................................61 Autonomous Learning Writing Promoted by the Use of Facebook Group KhairilRazali and HusnulKhatimah...........................................................................81 The Interlanguage Interference on the Difficulties of Building Question Sentences by the Second Year Students of MA As Soorkaty Salatiga Sari Famularsih........................................................................................................99 SUBMISSION GUIDELINES............................................................................119
Reviewer
KC Lee Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore Prof. Dr. Gusti Astika Satya Wacana Christian University Handoyo Politeknik Negeri Jember T. Ruanni F. Tupas Centre for English Language Communication, National University of Singapore Dr. A. Gumawang Jati, M.A UPT Pusat Bahasa Institut Teknologi Bandung Drs. Ahmad Sofyan, Ph.D Universitas Negeri Semarang Dr. H. Sa’adi Sekolah Tinggi Agama Islam Negeri (STAIN) Salatiga
Psychological Structural Analysis to “A Child Called It” by Dave Pelzer Endang Susilowati Ngudi Waluyo Nursing Academy Jl. Gedong Songo Candi Rejo Ungaran
[email protected] Abstract This paper attempts to explore a child abuse, the reason and the effect of the character’s psychological development using the theory of psychological development and structural analysis. Two approaches are used in this paper. Those are structural approach and psychology, especially developmental psychology approach. The first approach focuses on literary intrinsic elements. The second approach focuses on the character’s psychological development based on the developmental stages and tasks. Those are integrated into a psychological structural analysis. The result shows that child abuse that experienced by David is physical and psychological. He got the first stage of abuse commited by his mother who didn’t give him food and the last stage evidenced by some physical abuses when he lived with his mother. The primary reasons of David abuses are disciplinary patterns and he was regarded as a trouble maker.
Keywords: Psychological structural analysis, child abuse and psychological development. Abstrak Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengungkapkan kekerasan pada anak, alasan dan dampak dari kekerasan tersebut terhadap perkembangan psikologis tokoh
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dengan menggunakan teori perkembangan psikologis dan analisis struktural. Ada dua pendekatan yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini. Pendekatan ter sebut adalah pendekatan struktural dan psikologi, khususnya psikologi perkembangan. Pendekatan pertama berfokus pada unsur intrinsik sastra. Pendekatan kedua berfokus pada perkembangan psikologis tokoh ber da sarkan tahap dan tugas perkembangan. Kedua pendekatan tersebut diinte grasikan ke dalam analisis struktur psikologis. Hasilnya menunjukkan bahwa kekerasan terhadap anak yang dialami oleh David adalah kekerasan yang berupa fisik dan psikologis. Dia mendapat tahap pertama kekerasan yang dibuktikan dengan ibunya yang tidak memberinya makanan dan tahap ter akhir dari kekerasan yang dibuktikan dengan beberapa hukuman secara fisik ketika ia tinggal dengan ibunya. Alasan utama David mendapatkan pe nyiksaan adalah pola pendisiplinan dan ia dianggap sebagai anak yang men jadi sumber masalah. Kata kunci: Analisis struktur psikologis, Kekerasan pada anak dan Perkembangan psikologis Introduction Novel as a genre of literary work has intrinsic elements such as character and characterization, plot and plotting, setting and point of view. Those transfer the writer’s ideas to readers. Some novels are personal, seeking to explore human relationships, conflicts, desires and fears. This novel seems to appeal to readers in the way that described the writer’s idea. For example, Dave Plezer, the writer of novel trilogy A Child Called it, The Lost Boy and A Man Named Dave tells his idea about child abuse in his novels. This paper only focuses on his first novel, A Child Called It. David Plezer through Dave—tells about a child who tried to survive from his mother’s cruelty. His father only watched without ability to help him. Even when he was legally taken by his country, his effort to be freed from his mother’s shadow couldn’t be stopped. Until at last he can prove that he can become a famous writer. This paper tries to explore the kind of child abuse and its effect to a child by analyzing its character and characterization, plot and the writer’s
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point of view. Because the problem is the psychological development of a child so it needs developmental psychology. Those theories will be integrated. Wellek and Warren (1976:81) state ‘by psychology of literature’, we may mean the psychological study of the writer as type and as individual, or the study of the creative process, or the study of psychological types and laws present within works of literature, or , finally, the effect of literature upon its readers (audience psychology). It is known that psychology can be used to analyze the writer’s soul, his creative process, psychological types and the concept of psychology in literature and the effect of literature works upon its readers. It can be said that there is a significant relationship between psychology and literature. Psychology helps to clarify the problems in literature and literature presents insight to psychology. Developmental psychology Monks, et.al (2004:1) say that the object of developmental psychology is the human development as an individual. Development refers to a process leading to bring out capabilities and cannot be repeated. Some psychologists differ in their opinion about growth and development. Growth refers to the adding of body weight and physical’s function, whereas development refers to distinctive nature of psychological condition. Erikson approach in discussing the process of child development is to outline the stages of psychosocial development. Those are trust versus distrust (0-1 year), autonomy versus shyness and doubtful (1-3 years), initiative versus guilty (3-6 years), ability feeling versus low self esteem (6-12 years), identity and role disoriented (12-18 years), intimacy versus isolation (21-40 years/early adult), generative versus stagnation (40-65/middle adult) and ego integrity versus desperate (65-die). Those phases have their own developmental task. Meanwhile Piaget in his theory about cognitive development explains that cognitive development is discussed based on the phase of sensoric-motoric, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational states (Piaget, 1952:18,42,153). At every process of development there is a combination of self-encouragement to maintain and develop the self-encouragement. This means that what have been achieved will be maintained and used as a basic
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moral for further development. As a result of the defense, one will store all the useful experience. This experience will make the person more intelligent and mature. Kartono (1995:40) states that the combination of self-defense and encouragement of self-development is a process of new synthesis integration, namely the impulse of self realization and self-transcendence efforts. The developmental psychology also mentions that the principle of develop ment, the main motive of life is to negate and break away from all obstacles, sense of tension, and inner disequilibrium to reach and satisfy state of inner equilibrium. This balance would be achieved if all the requirements are met so all tension and mental disorders are lost. Discussion By using the first person point of view (I), the narrator seemed to make the reader able to feel all feelings experienced by the character. David as the main character and is a complex figure as can be seen from the dynamics of his life. It can be seen from his efforts to survive in the face of violence committed by his mother. The character in this novel is figured in dramatic ways. The reader will know the character and his attitude from several measures taken by him to survive. In the process of reading the novel, the reader will soon be brought with the dynamism of the character who never gave up in his quest to survive the abuse.
“I act timid, nodding to her threats. ‘Please, ‘I say to myself, ‘just let me to eat. Hit me again, but I have to have food. ‘Another blow pushed my head against the tile counter top. I let the tears of mock defeat stream down my face as storms out the kitchen, seemingly satisfied with herself. After I count her steps, making sure she’s gone, I breathe a sigh of relief. The act worked. Mother can beat me all she wants. I haven’t let her take away my will to somehow survive. I finish the dishes, then my other chores. For my reward I receive breakfast-leftover from one of my brother’s cereal bowls.” (4)
In his very young age (6-12 years), David has known that he had to get food if he wanted to live. His effort is not only having food but also stealing, slacking off when his mother would torture him, being very obedient and
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others. Based on the plot of time analysis, this novel uses flash back. The first chapter of the novel is Rescue. It tells about David’s life at the end he got abuse from his mother, as cited in the first chapter of this novel:” 5 March 1973, Daly City, California-I’m late I’ve got to finish the dishes on time, otherwise no breakfast; since I didn’t have dinner last night, I have to make sure I get something to eat” (3). From this note, it can be seen that at the first narration, the narrator at this case is David who brings the reader to the situation when he had to finish his task if he wanted to get a plate of rice. In this chapter, David also tells about the rescue that was done by his school teacher and ends the abuse from his mother. Then he was brought to foster house by a police officer.
“I run to the administration office, and I’m there in a flash. My throat is raw and still burns from yesterday’s ‘game’ Mother played against me. The secretary leads me into the teacher’s lounge. After she opens the door, it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. In front of me, sitting around a table, are my homeroom teacher Mr. Ziegler, my match teacher Miss Woods, the school nurse, Mr. Hansen and a police officer… I have no idea that they are about to risk their jobs to save me” (9)
Then, the story is back to the situation when he was happy with his family and when his mother still loved him:”In the years before I was abused, my family was ‘Brady Bunch’ of the 1960s. My two brothers and I were blessed with the perfect parents. Our every whim was fulfilled with love and care” (17). In this step through the chapter of Good Times, David tries to explore his mother’s closeness with her children and David’s admiration of his mother. “My Mother, Catherine Roerva, was a woman of average size and appearance. I never could remember the color of her hair or eyes, but Mom was a woman who glared with love for her children…” (18). David also told that her mother was a perfect woman for him.
“When it came to house keeping, Mom was an absolute clean fiend. After feeding my two brohters, Ronald and Stand, and I breakfast. She would dust disinfect, scour and vacuum everything. No room in our house was left untouched. As we grew older, Mom made sure we did our part by keeping our room neat. Outside, she meticulously attended a small flower garden, which was the envy of the neighborhood, with Mom, everything she touched turned into gold. She didn’t believe in doing anything halfway. Mom often told us that we must always do the best could, in whatever we did” (18-19).
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From David’s story readers can know that David admired and loved her mother so much. Her mother really cared of her sons and her house. Even her neighbors were also jealous with the way she managed her house. It is told by David when he was four (4) years. According to Kohlberg moral developmental psychology (1968:12) a child in this age is on the sensoricmotoric and preoperational phase by interpreting a thing or an event. David also uses his sensoric-motoric by starting to evaluate his house condition and his mother which makes him comfortable. This comfortable state can be seen from his happiness when he lived with his parents and his brothers. At Halloween and Christmas celebrations his mother always gave the best things to him. Because his father was a fire man who worked for 24 hours, he and his brothers spent most of the time with his mother. Base on the Erikson psychosocial development, David didn’t get bias of development when he was in 0-11 months or in the phase of trust versus un trust and when he was in one (1) until three (3) years old or in phase of autonomy versus shyness and doubtful. Because of that, David had really trust on his mother. His mother’s love in giving his daily needs when he was hungry or thirsty made him feels comfortable. He was never scared of his mother and it also made his mother close to her children. At that time, he was the youngest children in his house. He could play with his brothers well. The story develops with his mother changing and to ill treat David as the conflict in this story emerges. In the chapter of Bad Boys, David told that his mother’s treatment to him changed dramatically because of disciplinary reasons. His mother often gave punishment to him. It made him afraid of his mother. His fear is the conflict source in this story and makes the story more developed.
“About this time, Mom’s behavior began to change radically. At times while father was away, she would spend the entire day lying on the couch, dressed only in her bathrobe, watching television. Mom got up only to go to the bathroom, get another drink or heat leftover food. When she yelled at us, her voice changed from nurturing mother to the wicked witch. Soon, the sound of Mother’s voice began to send tremors down on my spine. Even when she barked at one of my brothers, I’d run to hide in our room, hoping she would soon return to the couch, her drink and her tv show” (30).
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It can be seen from the quote that the abused happened when David’s father was not at home. His mother’s attitude changed and this changing made David’s afraid. His mother who was initially described as an ideal mother for her children, day by day her character changes. The problem between David and his mother developed more as when his mother often gave David punishment. The punishment started from standing at the corner of the bed to smashing and pinching.
“SMACK!” Mother hits me in the face, and I topple to the floor. I know better than to stand there and take hit, I learned hard way that she takes that as an act of defiance, which means more hits, or worst of all, no food”(37) “Mother claimed that she had seen me that very day playing on the grass, which was absolutely forbidden by her rules. I quickly answered that I never played on the grass. I knew Mother had somehow made a mistake. My reward for observing Mother’s rules and telling the truth was a hard pinch in the face” (40-41)
In the chapters The Fight for Food and While Father is Away, David tells his mother abused to him. In exploring those abuses, the narrator brings the reader to the phase of the end of the character’s torturing. Plot of the story presented the existing conflict between David and his mother and makes it interesting. The worst punishment that David got from his mother was when she didn’t allow David going out with his father and his brothers when they went out.
“….Once in the cabin, I was scolded for making too much noise. For my punishment, I was not allowed to go with father and my brothers to the super slide. I sat on a chair in a corner, shivering, hoping that something would happen so three of them wouldn’t leave. I know mother had something hideous on her mind. As soon as they left, she brought out of Russell’s diapers. She smeared the Diaper on my face. I tried to sit perfectly still. I knew if I moved, it would only be worse. I didn’t look up. I couldn’t see Mother standing over me; but I could hear her heavy beating.”(53)
David gets abused when he was four (4) years old. According to Erikson (1963: 19) a child in this age is on the initiative versus guilty phase (3-6 years). In this phase the child started to develop his independency by his effort to wear his own cloth, to take his own food and to go to the toilet. David didn’t get development problem in this phase because at the beginning of his life, he felt comfortable living with his family. He had been able to control himself. The
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abuses continuously happened to David. David hoped that his father could help him but he never got it. His father only saw what his mother had done to him. It made David hates his father so much.”...when I open them, I stared at Father who turned away to avoid my pain. At that moment I hated Mother to the end, but I hated father even more”. (64). According to Kohlberg moral development (1968:15), David’s feeling to his father emerged because David was in preconventional phase. He had learned about good and bad and he had known that what his mother had done to him was not good but he didn’t get support from his father. He came to hate his father as the result of his disappointment. After David was pushed to eat his own vomit, his punishment was changed to the ammoniac. Because he couldn’t eat, his mother forced him to drink that liquid. As the child who didn’t know the dangers of the ammoniac, David thought that his punishment was too easy for him. He only needed to open his mouth and his problem would be finished. According to Piaget cognitive development (1952:42), the child 7 until 11 years old, his thinking is more rationale, imaginative, and can explore more object or situation to solve his problem. But his thinking ability isn’t completed. It also happened to David. His knowledge about the dangerous of the ammoniac wasn’t sufficient.
“Without hesitation I opened my mouth, and mother rammed the cold spoon deep into my throat. Again I told myself this was all too easy, but moment later I couldn’t breathe. My throat seized. I stood wobbling in front of Mother, feeling as if my eyes were going to pop out of my skull…” (75)
As a result of that punishment, David nearly died.. He couldn’t breathe, his throat was burned and his body seized. But it didn’t make his mother stop to punish him. His mother stabbed her knife into David’s stomach accidentally.
“She tried to regain her balance, snapping at Russell to let go of her leg, while she continued to scream at me. By then, her upper body looked like rocking chair that was out of control. Forgetting about her useless threats, I imagined that the old drunk was going to fall flat on her face. I focused all my attention on Mother’s face. Out of the corner of my eye I saw blurred object fly from her hand. A sharp pain erupted from just above my stomach. I tried to remain standing, but my legs gave out, and my world turned black” (87)
David thought with this accident his punishment would be over, but he was wrong. His mother still asked him to finish his food and wash all the dishes
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in thirty minutes. With his body still weak and in very severe pain, David followed his mother’s instructions. This condition is like the climax of the story, but the tensions of the story still continued. His mother dunks David’s face in the bathroom sink. Those abuses made David were very scared of his mother. According to Hurlock psychological development (1991:131) about the changing relationship between children and their parents, it can happen because of the concept of a good child. If the child doesn’t fulfill what his parents needed, his parents often become critical and punished. It also happened into David’s mother who thought that David isn’t a good boy because he always breaks her rules and always be able to have tactics to face each of her punishment and it makes her annoyed and made her give more and even worse punishment. “…This will teach The Boy to quit stealing food!” (76). Her mother’s reason giving hard punishments to stop David’s habit stealing food in his school. As 4-6 years child or in initiative versus guilty phase in Piaget (1952) cognitive development phase, David started his initiative by planning and trying new things. In his development phase he thought that it may not give a chance to him for fighting and he didn’t have another choice to be freed from his torturing. The climax of this story is in chapter The Lord Prayer as the end of the chapter of A Child Called It. This chapter told about David’s abuse when he was a proud of his writing was the best in his school and his teacher was very a proud of him. He hoped his mother would do the same but his mother never appreciated his works. His mother thought he was only it that had meaningless. His mother amuck made him had no spirit to survive. “….There is nothing you can do to impress me! Do you understand me? You are nobody! An it! You are nonexistent! You are a bastard child! I hate you and I wish you were dead! Dead! Do you hear me? Dead! (140). Views of psychosocial development suggested by Erickson (1963:42), when David got abused from his mother, he was at the phase of feeling ability versus low self esteem (6-12 years). In this phase the child will begin to learn to work together to compete through academic activities. As well as David, he felt very happy when he succeeded in writing and it made his teacher proud of him.. He hoped her mother would also be nice to him when she knew that he was doing well in his school, but he was wrong. His mother did not appreciate and reward for all that was done by him. As a result David REGISTER, Vol. 7, No. 1, Juni 2014
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felt that he was useless and he becomes low self-esteem. All his efforts to prove to his mother that he doesn’t like what his mother’s thought was gone. David finally found that he was only it just like what his mother said and his presence was only making a problem in his family. He did not have a passion for life. He resigned to that done by her mother until she eventually rescued by the teachers at his school. David was in 5th grade when he was rescued. He started to get abused when he was in kindergarten, which was the age of 3-4 years. Refers to Kohlberg’s moral development (1968:20) at that time child is in preconvention at the second phase. It can be seen from David’s-oriented attitude to punish ment and obedience; he was very obedient to all that was done by his mother. The obedience to his mother made him more afraid of his mother. As a child he only felt fear when her mother suddenly punished him when his brother also did the same thing.
“As a small child, I probably had a voice that carried farther than others. I also had the unfortunate luck of getting caught at mischief, even though my brothers and I were often committing the same ‘crime’. In the beginning, I was put in a corner of our bedroom. By this time, I had become more afraid of Mom. Very afraid. I never asked her to let me come out. I would sit and wait for one of my brothers to come into our bedroom, and have him ask if David could come out now and play” (29).
According to Kohlberg moral development (1963:20) at the preconvention phase, the child should get strong motivation from his family. This moti vation is to make the child able to differentiate between good and bad in his attitude. But if the task of child’s development isn’t fulfilled, the child will not understand about good and bad label and he will be scared. Then it’s happened to David. He doesn’t understand what his mistake was. He only knew that he got a lot of punishment from his mother. With these experiences David became more mature than his age. He suffered early aspiration level; the level of struggle leads a higher level. With his attitudes, he was able to find a way to survive. He realizes, crying is not a settlement. He must be able to think quickly and act correctly when faced his mother. It is in line with the thinking of the Monks who said that by the encouragement to survive, someone will save all his useful experiences (2004: 178). Then, with those experiences, someone will be cleverer and mature and
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have deeper appreciation of life. Every stage of life has just achieved a form of temporary equilibrium point of departure for the effort and new activities. David, with his experiences, began to look for ways to be able to withstand his mother’s abuse. “Standing alone in that damp, dark garage, I knew, for the first time, that I could survive. I decided that I would use any tactic. I could think of defeat Mother or delay her from her grisly obsession” (43). In term of cognitive development, Piaget (1962), David’s capabilities in addressing the abuses because when he was in 6-11 years old he is in concrete phase, he has been able to form his knowledge. David has been able to analyze the events in his life. He thought if he wanted to survive he had to have a tactics to face his mother. Conclusion Based on the analysis above, it can be seen that the writer uses flash back of the plot in telling his story. The writer made the story interesting and complex by revealing the tensions of the problem. The writer wants the reader to feel what has been experienced by the character with using ‘I ‘as the point of view of his narration. By analyzing the structural point of the literature along with psycho logical development approach, it can be seen that David gets from the first to the last stages of the child abuse. The sign of the first stage is that he didn’t get food from his mother and the sign of the last stage is physical abuse such as slap in his face, pinch etc. The primary reason of the abuse that David received is disciplinary. His mother thought that David wasn’t a good son so he should be disciplined by giving a lot of punishment that were very heavy for David. His mother also was annoyed with David because he was always able to face her punishment. The effect of the abuse was that David became scared of his mother. He also feels disappointed with his father because he couldn’t help him. David didn’t understand why he got a lot of abuse from his mother because he was still a kid when he got those abuses.
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References Erikson EH; 1963. Childhood and society. New York: Norton Hurlock, Elizabeth B. 1991. Psikologi Perkembangan: Suatu Pendekatan Sepanjang Rentang Kehidupan (terjemahan Istiwadayanti dan Soedjarwo). Jakarta Erlangga. Kartono, Kartini. 1995. Psikologi Anak (Psikologi Perkembangan). Bandung: Penerbit Mandar Maju. Kolberg. L. 1968. The Child as Moral. Cambridge: MA Harvard University Monks, et al. 2004. Psikologi Perkembangan. Yogjakarta: Gadjah Mada University Press Piaget, J. 1952. The Origin of Intelegence in Children. New York: International University Press Plezer, David. 2004. A Child Called It (thirty third impression). London: Orion Books Ltd. Wellek, Rene and Warren, Austin. 1976. Theory of Literature. Great Britain: Cox and Wayman Ltd
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Students’ Perceptions on a Good Tertiary Foreign Language Teacher Siti Tarwiyah IAIN Walisongo Semarang Jl. Walisongo 3-5 Semarang
[email protected]
Nadiah Ma’mun IAIN Walisongo Semarang Jl. Walisongo 3-5 Semarang
[email protected] Abstract This paper investigates students’ perception of tertiary teachers’ attitude, method of teaching and classroom management in the teaching and learning of (professional, pedagogic, social and personality competence) English and Arabic Language at IAIN Walisongo Semarang. This study is designed quantitavely and qualitatively using closed and open-ended questionnaire for collecting data. The subject of this research is the second semester students of the two faculties at IAIN Walisongo who, in that semester, take Arabic or English language course. The subject is chosen because based on 2012 course distribution, English and Arabic are distributed in the first and the second semester. The findings revealed that it is clearly seen that KPI (Islamic Communication & Broadcasting) department students have better perception to their English language teachers. Meanwhile, students who have better perception to their Arabic Language Teachers are those from Islamic Counseling Departments (BPI) of Dakwah faculty. Data of Tarbiyah Faculty shows Arabic language teachers are dominating. Arabic language teachers win 0.5 over English language teachers
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in almost all characteristics. This implies that expected performance of students in English Language is based on the teachers’ attitude, method of teaching the subject and classroom management. Based on the above-findings, recommendations were made.
Keywords: Perception, Tertiary Teachers, Personality Social and Pedagogic Competence, English Language, Teaching/Learning Abstrak Makalah ini mengkaji persepsi mahasiswa terhadap kompetensi sikap, metode pembelajaran, dan manajemen kelas dosen mata kuliah Bahasa Inggris dan Bahasa Arab di IAIN Walisongo Semarang. Kajian ini didesain secara kuantitatif dan kualitatif, dengan menggunakan kuesioner tertutup dan terbuka sebagai teknik pengumpulan data. Subyek penelitian ini adalah mahasiswa IAIN Walisongo semester dua dari dua fakultas, yaitu Fakultas Dakwah dan Fakultas Tarbiyah. Subyek ini diambil karena pada semester tersebut mereka sudah mengambil Bahasa Arab dan Bahasa Inggris. Hasil kajian menunjukkan bahwa mahasiswa Komunikasi dan Penyiaran Islam (KPI) mempunyai persepsi yang lebih baik terhadap dosen Bahasa Inggris, sedangkan mahasiswa Bimbingan Islam (BPI) memandang dosen Bahasa Arab mereka yang lebih baik. Data dari Fakultas Tarbiyah menunjukkkan bahwa dosen Bahasa Arab lebih mendapat tempat dalam hampir seluruh ka rakterisrik yang dikaji. Kata kunci: Persepsi, Kompetensi Sikap, Sosial dan Pengajaran, Bahasa Inggris, Pembelajaran Introduction Teaching a foreign language is considered to be one of the most challenging teaching practices. In Indonesia, students are usually afraid of joining foreign language classes. They may feel unmotivated, discouraged easily. Their minds say foreign language is difficult to learn because most of them know little thing or even nothing from the start. These phenomena should be taken into account by English and Arabic language teachers both at schools and at universities.
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In the teaching and learning process, teachers of English and Arabic Language as foreign/second language (FL/SL) have an important role in helping learners to learn. English and Arabic Language teachers must be able to create good atmosphere of language class and engage students’ motivation in learning them so that they can enjoy learning. This situation will automatically facilitate students’ understanding and support the realization of learning aims. It is believed that personal, pedagogical, intellectual/professional, and social capacity support teachers in conducting their teaching. A foreign language teacher with good competency will be able to cope with the following compelling factors: 1.
Insufficient foreign language competence
2.
The lack of knowledge and skill about the latest concept of foreign language teaching.
3.
The use of new books which the teachers must familiarize themselves and manage to master the contents.
4.
Monotonous teaching style results from insufficient knowledge about various media and method.
5.
Poor personality which will impact students’ attitude to the language classes.
6.
Poor classroom management which will influence the classroom atmosphere.
Good foreign language teachers manage to conduct teaching learning process based on language teaching principles. To make sure whether the process is done appropriately, supervision is demanded. Supervision of teaching learning process becomes an art of the work of the quality assurance board of a school. It is done by Lembaga Penjamin Mutu Pendidikan, school supervisor, headmaster, and teachers of the same subjects. The results of the supervision are, then, brought into the focus-group discussion among the elements involved. The discussion results in some recommendation for the future improvement of the teaching learning process. In another way it may be said that teaching learning needs preparation or plan which covers identification of learning aims, materials, methods, sources, and assessment. The implemented plan is then learnt to identify the strength and the weaknesses. The weaknesses becomes the room for im
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provement in the next teaching, especially when the teacher teaches the same materials. On the other hand, it is still perceived that many English language teachers in Indonesia are not effective teachers. They do not have adequate teaching skills and knowledge of subject matters, which are indicators of effective teachers (Hay McBer, 2000). The same case tend also to happend in Arabic language class. The second semester students of all faculties at IAIN Walisongo attend English or Arabic language class, since both courses are offered in the first and the second semester. Students as the subject of teaching, in a learner-centred class, must be aware of the importance of good lecturer, must be critical of their teachers’ competence. A class with a good lecturer will be a class with good output. On the other hands 60% of Arabic (35) and English language teachers (28) at IAIN Walisongo, where the study was conducted, do not have either English or Arabic Education background. This condition may influence teaching capacity of the teachers. On the base of that notion, this research is considered to be important input for Centre for Language and Culture as the coordinator of foreign language teacher and teaching at IAIN Walisongo especially in the effort of having English and Arabic language teachers that meet the demands of good teachers as proposed by students and concepts of teacher competences. After being aware of the importance of having the characteristics of good language teacher, the researcher hopes that the centre will upgrade its foreign language teachers’ competence and the teachers will also try to equip themselves with those characteristics. Perception Some studies on perception on teaching learning processes had been con ducted cited for this study. Among all of them are “Good Language Teachers”, Whose Perception?, done by Ani Purjayanti (2007) at Bogor Agricultural University, What Is a Good Language Teacher?: Students’ and Teachers’ Reflection, conducted by listyani at satya Wacana Christion University Sala tiga, and Conceptions of a Good Tertiary EFL Teachers in China, studied by Qunying Zhang and David Watkins (2007) at University of Hongkong.
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Hoffman said that perception aims at estimating true properties of the world. Perception usually results in cathegorization, which is in fact the classification of the world itself. ... perceptions usually hide the complexity of the world and guides adaptive behaviour (Hoffman, 2013:1). The way a person conceives and perceives something are usually influenced by the background knowledge of thing being highlighted and the person’s needs and interest. The wider knowledge s/he has the more comprehensive she/he will see the target. Nevertheless her/his view may be made blurred because of her/his needs and interest. Good language teacher The perception of good teacher comprises personal and teaching charac teristics. Directorate General of Higher Education (2006) had done a survey about students’ expectation towards toward their teachers. It indicates that a teacher should be clever/knowledgeable (pintar), knowledgeable in their subjects (menguasai ilmu-ilmu yang diajarkan), explain difficult points in an easy way (menjelaskan hal-hal yang sulit dengan cara yang mudah, patient and not cynical (sabar dan tidak sinis), have broad experiences/minded (mempunyai pengalaman yang luas), active in academic society (terkenal di masyarakat ilmiah), have a sense of humour (humoris), not to test students’ weaknesses in their lesson (bukan menguji ketidaktahuan mahasiswa), show positive attitudes to their students (bersikap positif terhadap mahasiswa) The law on lecturers and teachers (undang-undang Guru dan Dosen) has also explained that teachers must equip themselves with professional, pedagogic, personal, and social competences. A teacher who has these com petences can create a classroom atmospheree, make the lesson easy which boost students’ motivation and good attitude to the class/subject. The change of curriculum from 2006 or KTSP curriculum to 2013 curriculum, which emphasizes on character education represented in its core competence demands teacher creativity in arranging learning activities highly. It is hoped that through learning activities students will not only get knowledge, but also attitude and action (pengetahuan, sikap, ketrampilan). This is explisitly mentioned and explained in the enclosure of the regulation of
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Students’ Perceptions on a Good Tertiary....
minister of education (Permendikbud) no. 54/2013 about graduation com petence standard. The 2013 curriculum also require teachers to implement scientific approach. Through this approach teachers are demanded to design learning activities which give more learning experience to students in their effort to understand the materials. Through this approach teachers are also required to integrate three domains of learning aims, i.e. cognitive, affective, and psycho motoric, which are in line with knowledge, attitude, and action. Tomlinson (2003) is among experts who explain some characteristics of good language teachers. The characteristics are: 1.
is patient and supportive
2.
has a good sense of humor
3.
is enthusiastic, positive, and confident
4.
is interesting, stimulating, and creative
5.
is a good communicator
6.
is flexible and takes initiative
7.
is sensitive to the needs and wants of her learners and teaches res ponsively
8.
is critically aware of current theoretical and methodological develop ments
9.
has a large and varied repertoire of pedagogical procedures
10.
is proficient user of the target language
11.
has awareness of the realities of the target language and of the L1 and L2 cultures
Criteria 1, 2, 3 can be classified as personal competence and criteria 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 belong to pedagogic competence, and 10, 11 deal with professional competence. In term of material development, as a part of pedagogical competence which also supports a language teacher to be a good language teacher, Tomlinson (1998) states the following principals of material development: 1.
provide rich and varied experience
2.
provide variety of context specific beliefs
3.
set achievable challenges
4.
encourage cooperative learning
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5.
encourage peer monitoring and feedback
6.
encourage reflection and self evaluation
7.
provide constructive feedbacks
Other criteria of good language teacher can be mentioned here are (1) he must have good mastery of teaching materials, (2) have positive attitudes toward the target language, (3) must be patient, fair, and friendly, (4) know how to motivate students, (5) know how to deal with modern technology, (6) be able to activate students (I Gusti, 2007). In a nutcell, a good teacher is a teacher who can become a good partner for his or her students in one side and become an information resource as well as a classroom manager in another side. The roles of teachers in foreign language teaching Teachers is not a person who can do anything she or he wants in her or his class. Nevertheless it is still frequently said that a teacher is a ruler of the class. The following roles are those which should actually be played: 1. as an observer 2. as an assessor 3. as an organizer 4. as a facilitator 5. as a participant 6. as a source
(Harmer, 1983).
Like teachers in general, a good language teacher has to play his roles in line with his classroom situation or activity. If he is aware of all those roles he will create a logical sequence of activities in which he can change his role in one activity to another activity. The harmonious activities will make the class enjoyable for the students. Research method This research was quantitavely and qualitatively designed. It employed questionnaire as the main data collection techniques. That technique comprised
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closed and open-ended ones. The open ended questionnaire was functioned as triangulation of data collection technique. Meanwhile, the closed ended questionnaire was basically the main data collection technique aimed at getting the same data. Students were given enough time to express their judgment on their English and Arabic language teacher through both open and closed ended questionnaire. This study was carried out at IAIN Walisongo. Data of this study were taken from students of all faculties, i.e. Education and Teacher Training and Dakwah and Communication, who had taken English or Arabic Language in their previous semesters. Their conceptions and perception are the representation of their judgment made based on their learning experience. Discussion Perception of students of education and teacher training faculty
Perception toward english language teachers To gain information about students’ perception toward English language teachers, researchers distributed questionnaire to the students from four departments, i.e. biology, chemistry, physics, and Islamic Elementary School Teacher Training. Professional competence In terms of characteristics relating to professional competence the data show that having good mastery of teaching materials gains the highest score. It is 2.7. Other characteristics representing professional competence are proficient user of the target language, has awareness of the realities of the target language, and doesn’t see L1 and L2 as the different materials. Each of them gets 2.5, 1.5, 2.3. Those scores are summarized in tabel 1 below:
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Table 1 The Score of Professional Competence of English Language Teachers at Education and Teacher Training Faculty Characteristics of Professional Competence
No.
Score
1.
has good mastery of teaching materials
2.7
2.
is proficient user of the target language
2.5
3.
doesn’t see L1 and L2 as the different ones
1.5
4.
has awareness of the realities of the target language
2.3
Mean
2.25
If it is seen from the ranks of 4 (strongly agree), 3 (agree), 2 (disagree), and 1 (strongly disagree), which also mean 4 (very good), 3 (good), 2 (good enough), 1 (bad) the score of 2.25 (mean) is categorized as good enough, which does not mean good. To gain this cathegory, it still needs 0.75 or nearly 1. The score of 2.7 does not show that the English teachers teaching English 1, 2, and 3 at Education and Teacher Training Faculty have good mastery of the materials. If we trace back to the prerequisite of being English Teacher at this institution, such an impression or perception may not be given by the students. As can be seen, they are all have passed their graduate program, either from home or foreign universities. This perception may be influenced by their pedagogic competence. A teacher with good mastery of the materials without the support of good pedagogic competence will give unclear explanation of the materials and result in misunderstanding. More over, if the teachers look confused of making students understand, the perception that the materials is difficult, that the teachers do not master the materials well may be born. It is also shown that the teachers are also not proficient users of the target language, with the score of 2.5. In fact speaking is still hard for most of students and some teachers are also still hard to familiarize students with the oral use of the target language. To use the target language is actually not a problem for most of the English language teachers. But, it becomes a problem when the teachers fail to grade the language to students’ levels. Moreover, if the class is too heterogeneous. This fact often results in the desicion to use English less
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than Indonesian language when explaining the materials. Students may see that case as the teachers’ lack of competence in using oral English. Most of the teachers has less awareness of the realities of the target language, and L1 and L2 as the different one as can be seen from the score of 1.5 and 2.3. It may be true since not all English language teachers have background of English Education. Some of them teach the language because they are considered as good language users either oral or written regardless their educational background. Cultural intgration and personalization is importan when we teach a foreign language. But any information about the target language is commonly interesting for the students. Moreover, infor mation about the target language in context. Students should also know in what way the native language and the target language are different. By comparing between both of them the area of learning difficulties may be predicted. Hence, based on this prediction, teachers set a strategic plan in the form of teaching learning activities which focus on that area. In a nut cell, identifying the difference between native and target language is highly demanded in teaching a foreign language. One thing wonder the researcher is the data from open-ended question naire. Mosts students said that their English teachers were good. Only little of the did not say so. Some of the prooves may be listed are: ... jelas, menguasai ‘clear, master the materials’ (FIS/I14-L), ... sabar, cakap, motivator yang baik ‘patient, skillfull, good motivator’ (FIS/I15-MR), ... tidak pernah berbahasa Inggris dan lebih mengajar tentang bahasa, bukan ketrampilan berbahasanya ‘never speaks English and teach more about English, not language skill’ (FIS/ I14-AR), ... sabar, berbahasa Inggris dengan baik ‘patient, speaks English well’ (FIS/I20-SL), menguasai materi .... ‘master the materials’ (PGMI/I4-MH) dan (PGMI/I6-RW), Berbahasa Inggris dengan baik dan lancar ‘speaks English well and fluently’ (BIO/I19-a). Pedagogic and social competence The scores of teachers’ pedagogic competence are listed in the following table:
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Table 2 The Score of Pedagogic and Sosial Competence of English Language Teachers at Education and Teacher Training Faculty No.
Characteristics
Score
1.
doesn’t believe in students’ ability
2.7
2.
is interesting, stimulating
2.8
3.
Is creative
2.7
4.
is a good communicator
3.0
5.
always teaches based on students’ request
2.0
6.
is sensitive to the needs and wants of her learners
2.2
7.
teaches responsively
2.6
8.
sometimes aware of current theoretical and methodological developments
2.7
9.
has a large and varied repertoire of pedagogical procedures
2.3
10.
set hard challenges
2.3
11.
Encourage cooperative learning
2.4
12.
Encourage peer monitoring and feedback
2.2
13.
Encourage reflection and self evaluation
2.3
14.
provide constructive feedbacks
2.2
15
is flexible and takes initiative
2.3
Mean
2.3
Data above ensure the previous prediction that the low score of teachers’ professional competence may be tightly influenced by the teachers’ pedagogic and sosial competence. It is shown by the mean of the competences which reaches only 2.3, which is in fact less than ideal. Teachers’ inability to convey the lesson clearly often result in the perception that the teachers do not master the materials well. The lowest score is 2.0 representing teachers’ frequency in accommo dating students’ request which says always teaches based on students’ request. Although the score seems low but it is in fact the ideal score. When we teach,
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we are requested to consider students’ request. But, we must note not to always hear their voice. Before teaching teachers prepare syllabus and lesson plan. when they implement them, they are required to involve them in terms of choice of themes, activities learning sources. But we do that in line with our teaching learning plan. The frequency of monitor, feedback, reflection and evaluation is also still low, from 2.2 to 2.3. teachers who seldom monitor students’ activity will not be able to provide appropriate feedback. It’s also impossible for the to conduct reflection and class evaluation. Monitoring is one of crucial items in teaching learning process. It in fact needs energy and consumes time. When monitoring students’ activity, teachers do not have time to do their “side busnisses” while students are working out their instruction. More over, if it is followed by correcting students’ work. Although it’s time consuming teachers should spend their portion of time to monitor and correct students’ activities and work. This is they way how they will learn from their mistakes. Referring to these competences, some of the data from open-ended questionnaire also say differently. Most students said that their teachers were good, professional who implemented varied methodes, taught for skills, knew students’ condition, had fun class. They said, ... menggunakan metode bervariasi dan kelas yang menyenangkan ‘uses varied methods and has fun class’ (BIO/ I12-a), ... kreatif, menarik, jelas, disiplin ‘creative, interesting, clear, descipline’ (BIO/I13-a), ... menarik, antusias, jelas, pembelajaran berbasis tugas ‘interesting, enthusistic, clear, task-based learning’ (BIO/15-AP), ... sangat baik, bisa menghidupkan kelas ‘very good, capable of enlivening class’ (KIM/I13-ST), Mengimplementasikan cooperative learning ‘Implementing cooperative learning’ (KIM/I1-D), Enak ‘Fun’ (KIM/I29-S), Memenuhi kompetensi pedagogik .... ‘Meet padagogic competence’ (FIS/I2-SL), Jelas .... ‘clear’ (FIS/I14-L), ... kreatif dalam penyampaian dan manajemen kelas ‘creative in delivering materias and managing class’ (PGMI/I4-MH), Tanggap terhadap kondisi kelas dan tanggap terhadap karakter mahasiswa ‘Responsive to the class condition and students’ characteristics’ (PGMI/I16-MR).
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Personality competence The information about English language teachers’ personality competence may be accessed from table 3 below: Table 3 The Score of Personality Competence of English Language Teachers at Education and Teacher Training Faculty No.
Characteristics
Score
1.
is patient and supportive
2.4
2.
doesn’t have sense of humour
2.2
3.
is enthusiastic and confident
2.2
Mean
2.3
Just like the previous three competences, the data above proove that the average score of English language teachers’ personality competence has not reached an ideal score, since it is less than 3.0. Although it is not a terrible score, the English teachers still need to improve their personality. They still needto be more patient and supportive, have sense of humour, enthusiatic and confident. To change a person’s personality is not an easy job, since it has usually been built from her/his family and closest environment. But it is not impossible for a person to have better personality, to suit with the requirement of her/ his profession. That process may be started from improving teachers’ emphaty and care. Put ourselves in the position of others so that we can feel what others feel. Emphaty may boost our care, may make us more patient and supportive, and enthusiatic when handling our class. Some students had good perception about their English teachers’ per sonality competence by expressing their opinion through the open-ended questionnaire. Some said that their teachers are Menarik, antusias, .... ‘Interesting, enthusiastic’ (BIO/I15-AP), Perhatian pada yang belum paham ‘Give attention to those who are unclear’ (BIO/I26-a), Enak ‘Fun’ (KIM/ I29-a), Fleksibel, humoris, obyektif ‘Flexible, has sense of humour, objective’ (FIS/14-L), Sabar, cakap, motivator yang baik ‘Patient, skillfull, good motivator’
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(FIS/I16-AM), Baik, sabar, suportif, jelas, .... ‘Good, patient, supportive, clear’ (PGMI/I10-AM), Sabar, inovatif ‘patient, innovative’ (PGMI/I17-NMA), Jelas, motivator yang baik, terbuka ‘Clear, good motivator, open’ (PGMI/I19-MU). Perception toward arabic language teachers The source of information about students’ perception toward Arabic language teachers are students from other four departments of Education and Teacher Training Faculty, i.e. Islamic Education, Mathematics, Islamic Education Management, and Arabic Education. Professional competence The following data provide information about Arabic language teachers’ professional competence with the average score of 2.7. Table 4 The Score of Professional Competence of Arabic Language Teachers at Education and Teacher Training Faculty No.
Characteristics of Professional Competence
Score
1.
has good mastery of teaching materials
3.2
2.
is proficient user of the target language
2.8
3.
doesn’t see L1 and L2 as the different ones
2.0
4.
has awareness of the realities of the target language
2.8
Mean
2.7
Table 4 shows that most Arabic language teachers at Education and Teacher Training Faculty have good mastery of teaching materials. They may also be cathegorized as teachers good Arabic language proficiency and awareness of the realities of the target language. This perception may be influenced by the good score of pedagogic competence. Most of them are perceived not to see L1 and L2 as the different ones. Contrasting between native language and target language may raise students’ awareness about the different features between all those two languages. Good awarenesss of the differences prevent students from transfering L1 language
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rules into the L2’s they are learning. To conclude, that comparison will be a meaningful strategy in teaching a second or a foreign language. Teachers with good mastery of the materials often impatient in delivering the materials gradually. The Arabic language teachers may also be impatience in highlighting the difference between the native language and the target language. That is why, students perceive that their teachers do not see L1 and L2 as the different one. Most of data from open-ended aquestionnaire do support the above numerical data. Through this instrument most students also had positive perception to their arabic teachers’ professional competence. Among all of them said, Menguasai .... ‘Master the materials’ (PAI/A12-F), Menguasai, ber pengalaman, .... ‘Master the materials, experienced’ (PAI/A21-Y), Memenuhi standar ‘Meet the standards of a good teacher (KI/A12-SA), Menguasai materi, .... ‘Master the materials’ (KI/A15-SA), ... mempunyai kemampuan linguistik .... ‘... has linguistic ability ....’ (KI/A26-FA). Pedagogic and social competence The scores of teachers’ pedagogic competence are listed in the following table: Table 5 The Score of Pedagogic and Sosial Competence of Arabic Language Teachers at Education and Teacher Training Faculty No.
Characteristics
Score
1.
doesn’t believe in students’ ability
2.7
2.
is interesting, stimulating
2.8
3.
Is creative
2.7
4.
is a good communicator
3.0
5.
always teaches based on students’ request
2.0
6.
is sensitive to the needs and wants of her learners
2.2
7.
teaches responsively
2.6
8.
sometimes aware of current theoretical and methodological developments
2.7
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9.
has a large and varied repertoire of pedagogic procedures
2.8
10.
set hard challenges
2.7
11.
Encourage cooperative learning
2.7
12.
Encourage peer monitoring and feedback
2.6
13.
Encourage reflection and self evaluation
2.7
14.
provide constructive feedbacks
2.6
15
is flexible and takes initiative
2.8
Mean
2.7
The average score of pedagogic and social competence of Arabic language teachers at Education and Teacher Training Faculty is relatively good. Most of them are good communicator. It means that they can convey their learning materials well. Students’ understanding is facilitated by their explanation. They also do not always involve students in setting teaching poicies. Score 2.0 means that they keep the ballance between students’ involvement and teachers’ authority in setting them. Most of the teachers are also interesting, stimulating, have varied repertoire of pedagogic procedures, flexible and take initiative. Data from open-ended questionnaire seem not to support the above data. Most students of Islamic education Department (PAI) wrote that their teachers’ explanation is ununderstandable, teacher has less attention to the slow learners, monotonous class – “... kurang memahami kekurangan mahasiswa” (PAI/A4MI), “... belum baik, belum memahamkan” (PAI/A6-N), “... kurang memahamkan, tidak sesuai kontrak belajar” (PAI/A12-F), “... menguasai, berpengalaman, tapi anggap mahasiswa berkemampuan sama,” (PAI/A21-Y) , “Metode kurang, hanya menghafal, kadang monoton” (PAI/A26-N), “... tidak menghiraukan yang belum bisa” (PAI/A26-M). Unlike students of Islamic Education Department, students from Mathematics, Arabic, and Islamic Education Management said differently about their Arabic language teachers. Their Arabic language teachers are patient, supportive, fun, creative, humorist, qualified, have good commitment, methode, classroom management, ... Their teachers are ... sabar, suportif, me nyenangkan ‘patient, supportive, fun’ (KI/A1-ZR), ... berkomitmen, tepat waktu 28
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‘has commitment, on time’ (KI/A1-AI), ... kuasai kelas, materi, metode ‘manage the class, master the materials and methods’ (KI/A5-FA), ... semangat, menarik ‘enthusiatic, interesting’ (KI/A16-SA), ... sabar, membimbing ‘patient, guide’ (KI/A17-YR), ... jelas, menguasai metode, banyak inisiatif ‘clear, master teaching methods, has good initiative’ (PBA/A12-F), ... komunikatif, paham situasi mahasiswa, fasih ‘communicative, understand students’ condition, speaks fluently’ (PBA/A23-NMU), ... sabar, suportif, variatif, sistematis ‘patient, supportive, variative, sistematic’ (TM/A11-F), ... pengertian, sabar, toleran ‘understand students’ condition, patient, tolerant’ (TM/A12-AH).
Personality competence Table 6 provides information about Arabic language teachers’ personality competence. Table 6 The Score of Personality Competence of English Language Teachers at Education and Teacher Training Faculty No.
Characteristics
Score
1.
is patient and supportive
2.9
2.
doesn’t have sense of humor
2.7
3.
is enthusiastic and confident
2.7
Mean
2.76
From table 6 it is proven that most of the Arabic language teachers have considerably good personality competence. Although the score is less than but closes to 3.0. Personality may be the first thing which creates good impression, triggers and stimulates positive attitude to the language learning. Personality is actually innnate, but it may be changed and developed, although it is hard. The data from open-ended questionnaire support the numerical data above. Some of them are, sabar, suportif, variatif, sistematis ‘patient, supportive, variative, systematic’ (TM/A-F), pengertian, sabar, toleran ‘understand students’ condition, patient, tolerant’ (TM/A12-AH), sabar, suportif, menye nangkan ‘patient, supportive, fun’ (KI/A1-ZR), sabar, kreatif, humoris ‘patient,
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creative, has sense of humour’ (KI/A10-UN), sabar, kreatif, menarik, jelas ‘patient, creative, interesting, clear’ (PAI/A4-Mi), sabar, baik, suasana cair ‘patient, good, fun’ (PAI/A5-MT), tahu kondisi mhs, motivator ‘understand students’ condition, motivator’ (PBA/A28-MNU). Perception toward english and arabic language teachers: a brief comparison To highlight clearly the difference between the students’ perception toward English and Arabic Language Teachers at Education and Teacher Training Faculty, the researcher need to provide the following data: Table 7 The Score of Students’ Perception toward English and Arabic Language Teachers at Education and Teacher Training Faculty Characteristics 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
E
2.4
2.2
2.2
2.3
2.3
2.3
2.7
2.6
1.8
1.7
2
A
2.9
2.7
2.7
2.7
2.8
2.7
3.2
3
2
2.2
2.6
Characteristics 12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
E
2.2
2.3
2.5
1.5
2.3
2.4
2.2
2.3
2.2
2.3
2.3
A
2.7
2.8
2.8
2
2.7
2.7
2.6
2.7
2.6
2.8
2.8
If it is seen in detail, table 7 shows that in all characteristics Arabic language teachers are dominating. Arabic language teachers win 0.5 over English language teachers in almost all characteristics. Meanwhile, the data from each department may be listed as follow:
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Table 8 The Score of Students’ Perception toward English and Arabic Language Teachers from the Departments at Education and Teacher Training Faculty Teachers’ Subject English
Arabic
Department
Average Score
Biology
2
Chemistry
3
Physics
2
Islamic Elementary Teacher Training
2
Islamic Education
2
Mathematics
2
Islamic Education Management
3
Arabic Education
3
It is clearly seen that chemistry department students have better perception to their English language teachers. Meanwhile, students who have better per ception to their Arabic Language Teachers are those from Islamic Education Management and Arabic Education Departments. The above conclusion does not mean that teachers who teach chemistry, Islamic Education Management and Arabic Education Departments students are more qualified than those who teach the rest of students, since the English and the Arabic classes are mixed. The students are classified based on their intake rather than their department. Perception of students of dakwah and communication faculty Perception toward english language teachers To gain information about students’ perception toward English language teachers, researchers distributed questionnaire to the students from four departments, i.e. KPI, BPI and MD. Professional competence In terms of characteristics relating to professional competence the data show that having good mastery of teaching materials gains the highest score. It is 3.2. Other characteristics representing professional competence are proficient user
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of the target language, has awareness of the realities of the target language, and doesn’t see L1 and L2 as the different materials. Each of them gets 2.7, 2.2, 3.1. Those scores are summarized in tabel 1 below: Table 1 The Score of Professional Competence of English Language Teachers at Dakwah and Communication Faculty No.
Characteristics of Professional Competence
Score
1.
has good mastery of teaching materials
3.2
2.
is proficient user of the target language
2.7
3.
doesn’t see L1 and L2 as the different ones
2.2
4.
has awareness of the realities of the target language
3.1
Mean (11.2 : 4)
2.8
If it is seen from the ranks of 4 (strongly agree), 3 (agree), 2 (disagree), and 1 (strongly disagree), which also mean 4 (very good), 3 (good), 2 (good enough), 1 (bad) the score of 2.8 (mean) is categorized as good. The score of 3.2 shows that the English teachers teaching English 1, 2, and 3 at Dakwah Faculty have good mastery of the materials. As can be seen that a teacher who has good mastery of the materials with the support of good pedagogic competence will give clear explanation of the materials and good result. It indicates that the perception of students toward the teachers is good. On the contrary, it is shown that the teachers are not proficient users of the target language, with the score of 2.7. In fact speaking is still hard for most of students and some teachers are also still hard to familiarize students with the oral use of the target language. To use the target language is actually not a problem for most of the English language teachers. But, it becomes a problem when the teachers fail to grade the language to students’ levels. Moreover, if the class is too heterogeneous. This fact often results in the desicion to use English less than Indonesian language when explaining the materials. Students may see that case as the teachers’ lack of competence in using oral English. Most of the teachers has less awareness of the realities of the target language, and L1 and L2 as the different one as can be seen from the score
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of 2.2 and 3.1 It may be true since not all English language teachers have background of English Education. Some of them teach the language because they are considered as good language users either oral or written regardless their educational background. Cultural intgration and personalization is important when we teach a foreign language. But any information about the target language is commonly interesting for the students. Moreover, infor mation about the target language in context. Students should also know in what way the native language and the target language are different. By comparing between both of them the area of learning difficulties may be predicted. Hence, based on this prediction, teachers set a strategic plan in the form of teaching learning activities which focus on that area. In a nut cell, identifying the difference between native and target language is highly demanded in teaching a foreign language. One thing wonder the researcher is the data from open-ended question naire. Mosts students said that their English teachers were good. Only little of the did not say so. Some of the prooves may be listed are: ... jelas, menguasai ‘clear, master the materials’ (FD/BPI), ... sabar, cakap, motivator yang baik ‘patient, skillfull, good motivator’, ... tidak pernah berbahasa Inggris dan lebih mengajar tentang bahasa, bukan ketrampilan berbahasanya ‘never use English, teaches about language not language skill’ (FD/KPI), ... sabar, berbahasa Inggris dengan baik ‘patient, speaks English well’, Berbahasa Inggris dengan baik dan lancar ‘Speaks English well and fluently’ (FD/MD). Pedagogic and social competence The scores of teachers’ pedagogic competence are listed in the following table: Table 2 The Score of Pedagogic and Sosial Competence of English Language Teachers at Dakwah and Communication Faculty No.
Characteristics
Score
1.
doesn’t believe in students’ ability
2.7
2.
is interesting, stimulating
2.8
3.
Is creative
2.9
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4.
is a good communicator
2.9
5.
always teaches based on students’ request
2.5
6.
is sensitive to the needs and wants of her learners
2.7
7.
teaches responsively
2.8
8.
sometimes aware of current theoretical and methodological developments
2.7
9.
has a large and varied repertoire of pedagogical procedures
3.0
10.
set hard challenges
2.9
11.
Encourage cooperative learning
2.7
12.
Encourage peer monitoring and feedback
2.9
13.
Encourage reflection and self evaluation
2.9
14.
provide constructive feedbacks
2.8
15
is flexible and takes initiative
3.0
Mean (42.2 : 15 )
2.8
Data above ensure the previous prediction that the low score of teachers’ professional competence may be tightly influenced by the teachers’ pedagogic and sosial competence. It is shown by the mean of the competences which reaches 2.8, which is in fact less than ideal (good enough). Teachers’ inability to convey the lesson clearly often result in the perception that the teachers do not master the materials well. The lowest score is 2.5 representing teachers’ frequency in accommo dating students’ request which says always teaches based on students’ request. Although the score seems quite low but it is in fact the ideal score. When we teach, we are requested to consider students’ request. But, we must note not to always hear their voice. Before teaching teachers prepare syllabus and lesson plan. when they implement them, they are required to involve them in terms of choice of themes, activities learning sources. In fact, we do that in line with our teaching learning plan. The frequency of monitor, feedback, reflection and evaluation is good enough, from 2.8 to 2.9. teachers who seldom monitor students’ activity will not be able to provide appropriate feedback. It’s also impossible for the to
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conduct reflection and class evaluation. It needs improvement to have a good result. Monitoring is one of crucial items in teaching learning process. It in fact needs energy and consumes time. When monitoring students’ activity, teachers do not have time to do their “side busnisses” while students are working out their instruction. More over, if it is followed by correcting students’ work. Although it’s time consuming teachers should spend their portion of time to monitor and correct students’ activities and work. This is they way how they will learn from their mistakes. Referring to these competences, some of the data from open-ended questionnaire also say good. Most students said that their teachers were good, professional who implemented varied methodes, taught for skills, knew students’ condition, had fun class. They said, ... menggunakan metode bervariasi dan kelas yang menyenangkan ‘uses varied methods and has fun class’ , ... kreatif, lumayan menarik, jelas ‘creative, interesting enough, clear’ (FD/BPI), ... kreatif dalam penyampaian dan manajemen kelas ‘creative in delivering materials and managing class (FD/KPI), Tanggap terhadap kondisi kelas dan tanggap terhadap karakter mahasiswa ‘Responsive to the class condition and students’ characters’ (FD/MD). Personality competence The information about English language teachers’ personality competence may be accessed from table 3 below: Table 3 The Score of Personality Competence of English Language Teachers at Dakwah and Communication Faculty No.
Characteristics
Score
1.
is patient and supportive
3.1
2.
doesn’t have sense of humour
2.7
3.
is enthusiastic and confident
3.5
Mean (9.3 : 3)
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Different from the previous three competences that the data above proove that the average scores of English language teachers’ personality competence has not reached an ideal score, since it is less than 3.0. This table of Per sonality shows that their personalities are good. They are not only patient and supportive, but also enthusiatic and confident. Even though teachers’ emphaty and care, patient, supportive, and enthusiatic when handling our class in fact (based on the data above) they are less sense of humor in a classroom. Perception toward arabic language teachers The source of information about students’ perception toward Arabic language teachers are students from other three departments of Dakwah and Communi cation Faculty, i.e. KPI, BPI, and MD. Professional competence The following data provide information about Arabic language teachers’ professional competence with the average score of 2.7. Table 4 The Score of Professional Competence of Arabic Language Teachers at Dakwah and Communication Faculty No.
Characteristics of Professional Competence
Score
1.
has good mastery of teaching materials
3.2
2.
is proficient user of the target language
2.6
3.
doesn’t see L1 and L2 as the different ones
2.2
4.
has awareness of the realities of the target language
3.0
Mean ( 11 : 4 )
2.8
Table 4 shows that most Arabic language teachers at Dakwah and Communi cation Faculty have good mastery of teaching materials. They may also be cathegorized as teachers good Arabic language proficiency and awareness of the realities of the target language. This perception may be influenced by the good score of pedagogic competence. 36
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Most of them are perceived not to see L1 and L2 as the different ones. Contrasting between native language and target language may raise students’ awareness about the different features between all those two languages. Good awarenesss of the differences prevent students from transfering L1 language rules into the L2’s they are learning. To conclude, that comparison will be a meaningful strategy in teaching a second or a foreign language. Teachers with good mastery of the materials often impatient in delivering the materials gradually. The Arabic language teachers may also be impatience in highlighting the difference between the native language and the target language. That is why, students perceive that their teachers do not see L1 and L2 as the different one. Most of data from open-ended aquestionnaire do support the above numerical data. Through this instrument most students also had positive perception to their arabic teachers’ professional competence. Among all of them said, Menguasai materi ‘Master the materials’, berpengalaman ‘berpe ngalaman’ , Memenuhi standar ‘Meet the standards (FD/KPI,BPI,MD). Pedagogic and social competence The scores of teachers’ pedagogic competence are listed in the following table: Table 5 The Score of Pedagogic and Sosial Competence of Arabic Language Teachers at Dakwah and Communication Faculty No.
Characteristics
Score
1.
doesn’t believe in students’ ability
2.8
2.
is interesting, stimulating
2.8
3.
Is creative
2.8
4.
is a good communicator
2.9
5.
always teaches based on students’ request
2.7
6.
is sensitive to the needs and wants of her learners
2.8
7.
teaches responsively
2.7
8.
sometimes aware of current theoretical and methodological
3.1
developments
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9.
has a large and varied repertoire of pedagogic procedures
2.9
10.
set hard challenges
2.8
11.
Encourage cooperative learning
2.7
12.
Encourage peer monitoring and feedback
2.7
13.
Encourage reflection and self evaluation
2.8
14.
provide constructive feedbacks
2.7
15
is flexible and takes initiative
2.8
Mean ( 42 : 15 )
2.8
The average score of pedagogic and social competence of Arabic language teachers at Dakwah and Communication Faculty is relatively good. Most of them are good communicator. It means that they can convey their learning materials well. Students’ understanding is facilitated by their explanation. They also do not always involve students in setting teaching policies. Score 2.8 means that they keep the ballance between students’ involvement and teachers’ authority in setting them. Most of the teachers are also interesting, stimulating, have varied repertoire of pedagogic procedures, flexible and take initiative. Data from open-ended questionnaire seem not to support the above data. Most students of Islamic Broadcasting and Communication Department (KPI) wrote that their teachers’ explanation is ununderstandable, teacher has less attention to the slow learners, monotonous class (FD/BPI,KPI,MD). Some students also said about their Arabic language teachers. Their Arabic language teachers are patient, supportive, fun, creative, humorist, qualified, have good commitment, methode, classroom management. Personality competence Table 6 provides information about Arabic language teachers’ personality competence.
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Table 6 The Score of Personality Competence of English Language Teachers at Dakwah and Communication Faculty No.
Characteristics
Score
1.
is patient and supportive
3.0
2.
doesn’t have sense of humour
2.8
3.
is enthusiastic and confident
3.4
Mean (9.2 : 3)
3.1
From table 6 it is proven that most of the Arabic language teachers have considerably good personality competence. Personality may be the first thing which creates good impression, triggers and stimulates positive attitude to the language learning. Personality is actually innnate, but it may be changed and developed, although it is hard. Perception toward english and arabic language teachers: a brief comparison To highlight clearly the difference between the students’ perception toward English and Arabic Language Teachers at Dakwah and Communication Faculty, the researcher need to provide the following data: Table 7 The Score of Students’ Perception toward English and Arabic Language Teachers at Dakwah and Communication Faculty Characteristics 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
E
2.4
2.2
2.2
2.7
2.8
2.9
3.2
2.9
2.5
2.7
2.8
A
2.9
2.7
2.7
2.8
2.8
2.8
3.2
2.9
2.7
2.8
2.7
Characteristics E
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
3.0
2.9
2.7
2.2
2.7
2.9
2.9
2.9
2.8
3.0
3.1
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Students’ Perceptions on a Good Tertiary....
A
3.1
2.9
2.6
2.2
2.8
2.7
2.7
2.8
2.7
2.8
3.0
If it is seen in detail, table 7 shows that in all characteristics English language teachers are dominating. English language teachers win 0.5 over Arabic language teachers in almost all characteristics. Meanwhile, the data from each department may be listed as follow: Table 8 The Score of Students’ Perception toward English and Arabic Language Teachers from the Departments at Dakwah and Communication Faculty Teachers’ Subject English
Arabic
Department
Average Score
BPI
3.0
KPI
2.8
MD
2.7
BPI
2.9
KPI
2.7
MD
2.6
It is clearly seen that KPI (Islamic Communication & Broadcasting) department students have better perception to their English language teachers. Meanwhile, students who have better perception to their Arabic Language Teachers are those from Islamic Counseling Departments (BPI). The above conclusion does not mean that teachers who teach KPI, and MD Departments students are more qualified than those who teach the rest of students, since the English and the Arabic classes are mixed. The students are classified based on their intake rather than their department. References Ani Purjayanti. 2007. “The ‘Good Language Teacher’: Students’ Perspectives. Human Resources Development in English Language Teaching: The 55th TEFLIN Conference Proceedings. December 4-6, 2007. Direktorat Jenderal Pendidikan Tinggi (Dikti). 2006. Sosialisasi Tim Dikti.
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Kurikulum Berbasis Kompetensi (KBK) Hoffman, Donald D. The Interface theory of Perception to Swift Extinction. www. cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/interface.pdf. Accessed on October 10, 2013 Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan: Permendikbud no. 65/2013 Tomlinson, Brian (ed). 1998. Material Development in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tomlinson, Brian. 2003. Developing Materials to Develop Yourself Teaching. London: Continuum Press. Harmer, Jeremy. 1983. The Practice of English Language Teaching. London & New York: Longman Hay McBer Consultants. 2000. Research in Teaching Effectiveness. A summary report to the Department for Education and Employment, United Kingdom. Retrieved September 14, 2005 ,from http://www.teachernet. gov.uk/doc/1487/haymcber.doc. I Gusti Ayu GS. 2007. “Good Language Teacher in the Era of Globalization.” Human Resources Development in English Language Teaching: The 55th TEFLIN Conference Proceedings. December 4-6, 2007. Listyani. 2007. “What is a Good Language Teacher? An Overview of Students’ and Teachers’ Reflection.” Human Resources Development in English Language Teaching: The 55th TEFLIN Conference Proceedings. December 4-6, 2007. Zhang, Qunying and Davit Watkins. “Conceptions of a Good Tertiary EFL Teachers in China” in Tesol Quaterly Vol. 4 No. 4, December 2007
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The Impact of Structural Competence Towards Speaking Competence of The Fourth Semester Students of English Department of Tarbiyah Faculty IAIN Walisongo Semarang in the Academic Year of 2010/2011 Muhammad Nafi Annury IAIN Walisongo Semarang Jl. Walisongo 3-5 Semarang
[email protected] Abstract This paper tries to define any impact of structural competence towards speaking competence. In this research, the writer used descriptive co-relational method. It was used to describe whether there was an impact between two variables, i.e. structural competence (X) as independent variable and speaking competence (Y) as dependent variable. The subject of study was the fourth semester students of English department of Tarbiyah Faculty IAIN Walisongo Semarang. After the data had been analyzed, it was found that there was significant impact of structural competence especially in appropriateness. It helped students to arrange words into sentences that they utter.
Keywords: structural competence, speaking competence Abstrak Makalah ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui apakah ada dampak kemampuan berbicara terhadap kemampuan struktur berbahasa. Pada penelitian ini, penulis mengunakan metode deskriptif korelasi. Hal tersebut digunakan untuk mengetahui apakah ada dampak antara kedua varibel tersebut; kom petensi struktur bahasa (X) sebagai variabel yang tidak berpengaruh dan
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kompetensi berbicara (Y) sebagai variabel yang terpengaruh. Subyek penelitian adalah mahasiswa semester empat Progdi Tadris Bahasa Inggris Fakultas Pendidikan IAIN Walisongo Semarang. Setelah dianalisa, ditemukan bahwa ada dampak yang signifikan terhadap kompetensi stuktur berbahasa ter utama pada ketepatan pada penyusunan tuturan. Hal tersebut membantu mahasiswa dalam merangkai kata untuk menyusun kalimat yang mereka tuturkan. Kata kunci: Kompetensi struktur berbahasa, Kompetensi berbicara Introduction English is an international language which used all over the world. Many people learn to master it because many aspects in modern life cannot be separated from English. Nowadays we can find everything is written in English. As one of the aspects of globalization, English is now considered more and more important. English is spoken throughout the world and in most of multilingual societies; it has been adopted as the official language of law, administration, commerce, and education. In nearly every country in the world, English is taught in school as the major second language (Gathered, 1996: VI) There are four skills in mastering English, they are speaking, listening, reading and writing. Speaking is considered primary (Finocchiaro, 1973:3) because people learn to speak their native language several years before they learn to read and to write it. People judge one’s English competence through his speaking. If a student can speak English well, it indicates that he masters English. There are some elements of language such as vocabulary, structure, pronunciation, spelling, etc. Structure, as one of the elements of English is very important in language teaching. It is the system of language (Byrne, 1979), how the language is organized and used in communication. We can under stand the language if we know its structure. Some other time, the writer finds some students who understand structure, but in fact, they seem have difficulties in English especially in their speaking class. For instances: students still making mistakes on defining
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Present and Simple Past Tense. They often do this cause they are not realized when they have to change some activities which done in the past, therefore, they speak it in the Present Tense. It means that students knowledge of structural competence which they have do not support them much. Since structure is a fundamental in mastering English, and speaking is considered primary, the writer formulates a problem. The writer tries to define any impact of structural competence towards speaking competence of fourth semester students of English department of Tarbiyah Faculty IAIN Walisongo Semarang in the academic year of 2010/2011. Nature of structure As one of the elements of language, structure is very important learning, since it is the basic framework to master the production and comprehension of the typical sentences of the language. When people communicate with others, they may utter a word or some words to convey their ideas, thought or feelings. The words, which are form then, are called sentence. The sentence can be defined as a group of words joined together by grammatical agreement (relating device) and which, not grammatically dependent upon any other groups, are complete in themselves (Fries, 1952:20). Quirk and Greenbaun (1976:12) stated that a sentence may alternatively be seen as compromising five units called of sentence; structure, i.e: subject, verb, complement, object, and adverbial abbreviated as S, V, C, O, A. a.
Elements of Sentence
The elements are simply explained below:
1. Subject is a noun or pronoun that comes before the verb in an ordinary affirmative sentence. It usually says (in an active sentence) who or what does the action that verb refers to.
2. Verb is word, which is used with a subject to form the basics of a clause. Most verbs refer to actions or states.
3. Object is a noun or pronoun that normally comes after the verb (in active sentence). There are two kind of object:
a)
Direct Object
It refers to a person or thing affected by the action of the verb.
Indirect Object
b)
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1)
Adverbial is a group of words that does the same job as an adverb phrase or adverb clause.
2) Complement is a part of sentence that gives more information about subject (after be, seem and the same after verbs) or in some structures, about object (Swan: 1980).
b.
The Sentence Classification
Sentence is divided according to their structure into class simple, compound and complex sentence.
1.
Simple sentence A simple sentence is a group of words, which express a single independent thought or contains one independent clause only. Quirk and Greenbaun (1976: 191) divided simple sentence into four major syntactic classes, whose use correlates with different communicative functions:
a) Statements are sentences in which the subject is always presented and generally precedes the verb, example: A student comes to the class.
b)
Questions are sentences marked one by one or more of these criteria:
1)
The placing of the operator immediately in front of the subject, example: Does a student come to the class?
2)
The initial positioning of an interrogative or wh- elements, example: Who comes to the class?
3)
Rising intonation, example: A student comes to the class?
c) Commands are sentences, which normally have no overt grammatical subject and whose; verb is in the imperative, example: Come on the class!
d) Exclamations are sentences which have an initial phrase introduced by what or how, without inversion subject and operator; example: What a diligent student!
2.
Compound sentence Compound sentence is a sentence that combined from two or more simple sentences (main clause) joined coordinately by punctuation alone, by coordinate conjunctions or by conjunctive adverbs.
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a)
Joined by punctuation alone
John was sick; he did not come to school
Main clause Punctuation
b)
Main clause
Joined by coordinative conjunction; and, but, or.
John was sick, but he came to school
Main clause
Coordinative conjunction
Main clause
c) Joined by conjunctive adverb; moreover, in addition, other wise, however, nevertheless, therefore, etc.
John was sick, however he came to school
3.
Main clause
Main Clause
Conjunctive adverb
Complex sentence A complex sentence is a sentence that consisting of one main clause and one or more subordinate clauses.
For example: They watch the television whenever they like
4.
Main clause
subordinate clause
Compound complex sentence Compound complex sentence is a sentence that consists of two or more main clauses and one more subordinate clauses. For example: since I had seen her the day before, I knew that he was unhappy, but I did not guess that he would give up this plan.
Language skills Anyone who uses languages well has a number of different abilities. He/she may read books, write letters, speak on the telephone, listen to the radio, and so on. Generally, we can identify four major skills such as; listening, speaking, reading and writing (Hammer, 1978: 16). Those skills are classified into productive and receptive skills. Speaking and writing are productive
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skills and involve some kinds of production on the part of the language user. Listening and reading understanding belong to receptive skills and involve the language user is receiving written or spoken language. When two people carry out a conversation, they very often use a com bination of skills, for example speaking and listening skills. As we know that speaking is a part of language skills which should be mastered by students. As stated in the 2006 national curriculum states that students should master the four language skills besides speaking, there are: listening, writing and reading. Therefore, English still becomes one of the compulsory subjects which have been afraid by students. Nature of communication When two people are in talking to each other, we can fairly be sure that are so far a certain reason. The reasons they may have are as follows: a.
They want to say something. “Want” is used here in general way to suggest that speakers make definite decisions to address other people. Speaking may be forced upon them but we can call still say they feel the need to speak, otherwise they would keep silent.
b.
They have some comunicative purposes. Speakers say things because they want something to happen as a result of what they say. They may want to give information or express their ideas. They may decide to be rude or flatter, to agree communicative purpose, or succeed in conveying the message and the effect they want it to have.
c.
They select from their language store. Speakers have an infinitive capacity to create new sentences (especially if they are native speakers). In order to achieve their communicative purpose, they will select the language they think is appropriate for this purpose.
d.
They want to listen to “something”. Once again “want” is used in general way. But the listeners in order to understand what they are listening to they must have some desire to do so.
e.
They are interested in the communicative purpose of what is being said. In general people listen to because they want to find out what the speaker is going to say – in other words what ideas they are conveying, and what effect they wish the communication to have.
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f.
The process a variety of languages. Although the listener may have a good idea of what the speaker is going to say next in general terms, he has to be prepared to process a great variety of life grammar and vocabulary to understand exactly what is being said.
As we see from the explanation above that oral communication is a twoway process between speaker and listener, involving the productive skill of speaking and receptive skill of understanding. Both speaker and listener have a positive function to perform. The speaker has encode the message to be conveyed in appropriate language, while the listener has to decode (or interpret) the message. The message itself, in normal speech, usually contains a great deal of “information” which is redundant. At the some other time, the listener is helped by prosodic feature, such as stress and intonation, which accompany the spoken utterances and form part of its meaning, hence, by facial and body movement. Oral production The main goal in teaching the productive skill of speaking is oral fluency that is the ability to express oneself intelligibility, reasonably, accurately and without undue hesitation. To attain this goal, the students will be brought from the stage where they merely imitate a model or respond to cues to the point where they can use the language to express their own ideas. Two complementary levels of training will therefore be required practice in the manipulation of the six elements of the language (principally the use of grammatical patterns and lexical terms) and practice in the expression of personal meaning. For the purpose the teacher cannot depend on written texts as basic for oral practice. Audio – visual aids, on the other hand, provide at all levels a powerful way of stimulating and developing oral ability without resource to the written language. Interdependence of the oral skills in communication Although in the class practice it is often necessary to concentrate at certain times developing one of the oral skills more than others, we should not lose sight of the fact that oral comunication is two-ways process between speaker and listener. Thus, the speaker does not always imitate: he also
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responds to what he has heard, while the listener does not always remain silent: he is normally expected to make some sort of response. In classroom, therefore, appropriate provision has to be made to see that the two oral skills are integrated through situations, which permit and encourage authentic comunication. Intelligibility Intelligibility is usually defined in phonological sound such as /i:/ and /i/. At a level of basic understanding this aspect of intelligibility is unquestionably important but for the purpose of oral fluency, the terms need to be able to communicate effectively, the leaners need an adequate matery of grammar and vocabulary as well as phonology. In the arrea of grammar, learners should not be expected to master grammatical items simply because the exist in the language, but not only those essential for communication. Oral ability and motivation The development of oral ability is a good source of motivation for most learners who normally much concern to be able to speak and uderstand a foreign language. Satisfaction at being able to say a small number of sentences after a few lesson must be sustained by demonstrating to the students that they can say progresively more and more through the language as the course continues. Motivation can often be improved in large classes by placing greater emphasis on the receptive skill of listening. This has the additional advantage of getting the students accustomed to understanding the language without reference to a written text as well as providing opportunities the meaningful repetition of known. Communicative competence From the baby onwards, everybody starts to learn how to communicate effectively and how to respond to other people’s communications. Some people are better at communicating than others, but common people learn to communicate through language. One of the importance factors in context is the nature of the participants. The age, sex, social status and educational level of the speaker and listener, all affect that the mode of expression used.
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The next two factors are closely connected with each other. They are actual situation in which the language occurs and the kind of contact between the participants. The importance of the situation itself has always been recognized, and it is heavily emphasized in situational language courses, as well as in travelers; phrase books, where it becomes clear that the language varies according to whether one is shopping, or asking direction, or booking at the hotel and restaurant. Depending on the situation, the contact between the participants could either in speech or in writing, and at any points on the range of proximity, i.e. face to face, not face-to-face (two ways contact by telephone or correspondence), or one way contact (radio, TV, advertisement, notice). Simply by observing the choice of expression, one can postulate circumstances’ in which one or the other would be likely to be written rather than spoken, used in one place rather than another. Another parameter is the nature of the subject matter or topic or field of discourse. Its influence has been recognized for extreme of English Special Purposes such as technical usage, international aviation English, legal terminology, etc. Mod and purpose The way people communicate, as well as what they communicate is a matter of choice. It is restricted by the conventions of the speech community and the language itself. The external factors governing usage play their part in decreeing what is appropriate to different circumstances. A speaker is free to choose the mood as he wishes to convey as well as what he wants to say, he is constrained by the available resources of the language to fulfill his aims. That’s why he must select not only a correct expression but one that is appropriate to his intentions. Regarding the function of communication, there are five general functions, which can usefully be isolated: personal. The speaker will be open to interpret as polite, aggressive, in a hurry, angry, pleased, etc., according to how he speaks Directive. The speaker attempts to control of influence the listener in some ways. Establishing relationship: the speakers establish and maintain contact the listener, often by speaking in ritualized way in which what is said is not as important as the fact that is said is not as important as
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information to the listener. Enjoyment: the speaker is using language for its own ‘sake’ in poetry, rhymes, songs, etc (Corder, 1973:42-9). Basic assumption Structure is the rule of language that enables speakers to express and orga nized their ideas through sentences or utterances or in the other words to carry out a communication with others. Therefore, students must understand the English structure in order to speak English. Without understanding its structure, it is very hard to get the meaning of the message conveyed. Research Method In this study the writer used descriptive co-relational method. It was used to describe whether there was impact between two variables, i.e. structural competence (X) as independent variable and speaking competence (Y) as dependent variable. The population of this research was the fourth semester students of English Department Tarbiyah Faculty IAIN Walisongo Semarang in the academic year of 2011/2012. The number of the population was sixty (60) students. The sample was taken from the all students of fourth semester because the total number of population was less than 100 subjects. In collecting the data of this research, the writer used test as the instrument. There were two kinds of tests. The structure oral test was used to measure students’ competence in structure. The other test, oral test was used to collect data of students’ speaking competence. The tests had been carried out at June 27th 2011 and June 29th 2011. 1.
Structure test
Structure test of 40 items, and the test contains multiple choice ones. The test is compiled from TOEFL. The consideration of compiling it is that TOEFL, is a standardized test and admitted by people to measure one’s English competence.
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Table 1 The content of structure test No
52
Materials
Item Numbers
1
Duration: since
1
2
Used to
2
3
Numerical order the
4
Not only .............. but also
5
Causative have, make
6,7,8
6
Conditional type I
9, 10
7
Conditional type II
11
8
Had better
12
9
Paralel structure
10
Anticipatory II
16
11
Uncountable noun
17
12
Countable noun
18
13
Degree comparison
19, 20
14
Adjective clause
22, 23
15
Would rather
24
16
Passive voice
25
17
Indirect question
26, 27
18
Infinitive to
28, 29
19
Verb + ing form
30, 31
20
Verbal modifier – ing form
21
Either; neither
33, 34
22
Clause
35, 36
23
Because
37
24
Reflexive pronoun
38
25
Because of
39
26
Adverb
40
3, 4 5
13, 14
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2.
Oral test
Underhill (1987: 44-81) states there are twenty techniques to test speaking skill, i.e.: discussion oral report, learner-learner joint discussion, role-play, interview, learner-learner description and recreation, form filling, making appropriate responses, questions answer, reading blank dialogue, using picture, giving description, i.e.: tell story or text from aural stimuli, reading aloud, translating/interpreting sentence completion from aural or written stimulus, sentence correction, sentence transformation and sentence repetition. From those techniques, the writer taught that using picture was effective and the most efficient to conduct the test. The components of language proficiency used are:
a. Fluency
It refers to one’s ability to speak a language smoothly and easily
b. Grammar
It concerns with one’s ability to organize words into sentences grammatically correct and to measure one’s ability in applying grammatical rule as well.
c. Vocabulary
This item is designed to measure one’s skill to remember or retake any words from his memory.
d. Pronunciation
measures one’s ability to pronounce English sounds correctly, includes its aspects like stress, intonation, etc.
3.
Scoring systems
a.
Scoring of structure test The structure test consists of 40 items and all are multiple choice. The score of each number is one for the right one. So we can get a maximum score around 40.
b.
Scoring of oral test As mentioned above that the test type used is using picure. There are seven pictures that must be retold by the students for about ten minutes. The components of language proficiency, grammar, vocabulary and pronounciation. The maximum score of each is 20, thus the total score is 80.
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Table 2 The Speaking Score No 1 2 3 4
Language aspects Fluency Grammar Vocabulary Pronounciation Total
Number of items Score 5x4 5x4 5x4 5x4
20 20 20 20 80
To make it easier, the writer gives criteria for each components and it is applied by score 1 – 5. The criteria are mentioned below:
1. Fluency
5: speak smoothly and easily without any grooving
4 : speak with only accational hesitation
3: frequently have to think first before speak but enable to continue to speak
2: often stop speaking
1: say a word then stop speaking
2. Grammar
5: the sentences are all grammatically correct
4: making mistakes but not destroy the meaning
3: making mistakes and destroy the meaning
2: the utterances are difficult to be understood
1: the speech cannot be understood at all
3. Vocabulary
5: using appropriate vocabulary
4: using some innapropriate words
3: frequently using innapropriate
2: having very limited vocabulary
1: stop speaking at all
4. Pronounciation
5: Pronounce all words correctly
4: understandable although having certain accent
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3: paying attention a lot of and making understanding
2: often making misprouncing
1: the speech is not understandable
Discussion Students’ structural competence 1.
Classical structural competence
In measuring the classical structural competence is 50.4%. Thus the classical structural competence is 50.4%. It can be said that the students structural competence is fair.
To know the precentage of students’ competence, Arikunto (1991: 67)
suggested five categories the students’ competence as follows:
a.
Very good: if 81-100% the answer are correct
b.
Good: if 61-80% of the answer are correct
c.
Fair: if 41-60% of the answer are correct
d.
Bad: if 21-60% of the answer are correct
e.
Very bad: if 0-20% of the answer are correct
2.
Frequency distribution of structural competence
The computation of frequency distribution of students’ structural competence is as follows: Table 3 The Length of Class Interval Class interval
Fi
Xi
Fixi
30 – 32
3
31
93
27 – 29
5
28
140
24 – 26
8
25
200
21 – 23
12
22
264
18 – 20
16
19
304
15 – 17
10
19
160
Des – 14
6
13
78
Total
50
157
1239
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a.
Determining the range of scores by substracting the highest score by lowest score. The range of students’ structure is the highest score: 31, and the lowest score: 12. The range is 19.
b.
The number of class interval by using the formula 1 + 3.3 log 50. The result is 6.606. so the number of class internal is 7.
c.
2.
Length of class interval is 2.71 In this case the length of class interval used is 3
Measure of central tendency of structural competence Table 4 The Structural Competence Mean 20.31
a.
Median
Mode
20.125
19.3
The mean of students’ structural competence has been compurized by frequency distribution is 20.31
b.
Thus the median of structural competence is 20,125
c.
Mode 19.3
Students’ speaking competence Table 5 The Students’ speaking Competence Class interval
56
Fi
Yi
Fi . Yi
72 – 74
3
73
219
69 – 71
9
70
630
66 – 68
13
67
871
63 – 65
3
64
192
60 – 62
15
61
915
57 – 59
5
58
290
54 – 56
5
55
275
51 – 53
5
52
260
Total
58
62
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1.
Classical speaking competence is 80. 125%
Thus the classical speaking competence is 80.125%. We can categorize that the classical speaking competence is good. It can be seen in Arikunto (1991: 67) in the previous pages.
2.
Frequency distribution
The computation of frequency distribution of students speaking com petence is as follows:
a.
The range of students’ speaking competence is, the highest score: 73, and the lowest score: 51. The range is 22.
b.
The number of class interva by using the formula: 1 + 3.3 log 50, the result is 6.606. So, the number of class interval is 7
c.
The length of class interval (P) is 3.14
In this case the length of class interval used is 3
3.
Measure of central tendency of speaking competence
a. The mean is 59,868
Thus the main of speaking competence is 59.868
b. Median
Thus, the median of speaking competence is 66,4
c. Mode
The mode of speaking competence is 66.357
Product moment correlation The computation of product moment correlation coefficient is done after we find the values of N, ∑X, ∑Y, ∑X2, ∑Y2, and ∑ XY score. The result of computation using Pearson’s formula is 0.990 Table 6 The Respondents Respondents
R
Y
X^2
Y^2
XY
R1
20
60
400
3600
1200
R2
16
56
256
3136
896
R3
19
59
361
3481
1121
R4
23
63
529
3969
1449
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The Impact of Structural Competence....
58
R5
19
59
361
3481
1121
R6
17
57
289
3249
969
R7
17
57
289
3249
969
R8
18
58
324
3364
1044
R9
18
58
324
3364
1044
R10
18
58
324
3364
1044
R11
22
62
484
3844
1364
R12
20
60
400
3600
1200
R13
24
64
576
4096
1536
R14
20
60
400
3600
1200
R15
19
59
361
3481
1121
R16
21
61
441
3721
1281
R17
27
67
729
4489
1809
R18
26
66
676
4356
1716
R19
24
64
576
4096
1536
R20
13
53
169
2809
689
R21
15
55
225
3025
825
R22
23
63
529
3969
1449
R23
19
59
361
3481
1121
R24
21
61
441
3721
1281
R25
15
55
225
3025
825
R26
26
66
676
4356
1716
R27
24
64
576
4096
1536
R28
20
60
400
3600
1200
R29
20
60
400
3600
1200
R30
20
60
400
3600
1200
R31
22
62
484
3844
1364
R32
21
61
441
3721
1281
R33
19
59
361
3481
1121
R34
21
61
441
3721
1281
R35
19
59
361
3481
1121
R36
23
63
529
3969
1449
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R37
16
56
256
3136
896
R38
23
63
529
3969
1449
R39
18
58
324
3364
1044
R40
20
60
400
3600
1200
R41
19
59
361
3481
1121
R42
20
60
400
3600
1200
R43
20
60
400
3600
1200
R44
23
63
529
3969
1449
R45
26
66
676
4356
1716
R46
19
59
361
3481
1121
R47
22
62
484
3844
1364
R48
21
61
441
3721
1281
R49
18
58
324
3364
1044
R50
21
61
441
3721
1281
R51
22
62
484
3844
1364
R52
21
61
441
3721
1281
R53
21
61
441
3721
1281
R54
20
60
400
3600
1200
R55
24
64
576
4096
1536
R56
17
57
289
3249
969
R57
25
65
625
4225
1625
R58
20
60
400
3600
1200
R59
15
55
225
3025
825
R60
20
60
400
3600
1200
R61
20
60
400
3600
1200
1240
3680
25726
222526
75326
From this table above we know that the computation of product moment correlation coefficient is done after we find the values of N, ∑X, ∑Y, ∑X2, ∑Y2, and ∑ XY score. The result of computation using Pearson’s formula is 0.0990.
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Conclusion The classical structural competence of fourth semester students of English Department of Tarbiyah Faculty IAIN Walisongo Semarang is 50.4%. It can be catgorized in fair level and the mean of structural competence is 20.125. The classical speaking competence of fourth semester students of English Department of Tarbiyah Faculty IAIN Walisongo Semarang is 59.868% and it is good category. The mean of speaking competence is 63.76. It occurs because structure is a small element in speaking besides vocabulary, pronounciation, and fluency that work together. The result showed that there was significant impact of structural competence especially in appropriateness because they are able to arrange words into sentences when they utter. References Arikunto, Suharsimi. 2006. Prosedur Penelitian: Suatu Pendekatan Praktik. Jakarta: PT. Rineka Cipta. Byrne, James. 1973. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. New York: Addison Wesley Longman Corder, Dale. 1973. How To Develop Self-Confidence And Influence People by Public Speaking. London: Vermilion. Fries, CC. 1952. Speech Communication Made Simple. New York: Addison Wesley Longman. Guthered, Tim.1996. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harmer, Jeremy. 2001. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Great Britain: Pearson Education Limited. Underhill, M. 1987. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. New York: Addison Wesley Longman. Swan. 1980. Writing English Language Tests. London: Longman.
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The Influence of Digital Games Based Learning on Students’ Learning Outcomes and Motivation Rahmat Yusny UIN Ar Raniry Aceh Jl. Syech Abdurra’uf Kopelma Darussalam Banda Aceh
[email protected] Sarah Fitri UIN Ar Raniry Aceh Jl. Syech Abdurra’uf Kopelma Darussalam Banda Aceh
[email protected] Abstract There is no doubt that the emergence of today’s digital age greatly affects the human life - including students in their educational life. In order to simplify the process of studying languages, especially English, many scientists and experts continue to find new and innovative methods. One of them is the method of Digital Games Based Learning (DGBL). However, the implementation effort of DGBL method to improve English language skills of students is still a matter of controversy. It is mainly caused by the use of game - which is assumed by the public just as merely means of entertainment rather than as a medium of learning. Judging on this reason, researchers are interested highlighting them to be their research. This research was conducted in order to view the significance and influence of DGBL in improving English language skills of students - particularly the ability to hear and read - as well as their motivation to learn. The study was conducted over five sessions in March 2013 with a sample of 13 students were selected at random stratification of 68 second -year student population PBI, Ar - Raniry UIN .Researchers collected
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data by applying the experimental use of games in the classroom, provide pre-test and post-test, as well as distributing questionnaires dealing with motivation. From the analysis of quantitative data, it can be concluded that the method of Digital Games Based Learning (DGBL) can be used to improve student’s achievement and learning motivation in learning English.
Keywords: Digital Games Based Learning (DGBL), Learning outcome, Motivation Abstrak Kemunculan era digital dewasa ini, tidak dapat dipungkiri, sangat berpe ngaruh terhadap kehidupan manusia—termasuk siswa dalam mengenyam pendidikan mereka. Guna mempermudah proses mempelajari ilmu bahasa, terutama Bahasa Inggris, banyak ilmuwan dan para ahli yang terus berupaya menemukan metode baru dan inovatif. Salah satunya adalah metode Digital Games Based Learning (DGBL). Akan tetapi, upaya pengimplementasian metode DGBL untuk meningkatkan kemampuan berbahasa Inggris siswa masih menjadi kontroversi. Hal ini tidak lain disebabkan oleh pengguna an game—yang diasumsikan oleh publik sekedar alat hiburan semata—se bagai media pembelajaran. Menilik pada alasan tersebut, peneliti ter tarik mengangkat permasalahan ini ke dalam penelitiannya. Penelitian ini dilakukan guna melihat signifikansi serta pengaruh DGBL dalam mening katkan kemampuan berbahasa Inggris mahasiswa—terutama kemampuan mendengar dan membaca—serta motivasi belajar mereka. Penelitian dilaku kan selama lima sesi pada bulan Maret 2013 dengan jumlah sampel 13 mahasiswa yang dipilih secara stratifikasi acak dari 68 jumlah mahasiswa PBI tahun kedua, UIN Ar-Raniry. Peneliti mengumpulkan data dengan mengaplikasikan penggunaan game di kelas eksperimen, memberikan pretest dan posttest, serta mendistribusikan kuisioner motivasi. Dari hasil analisis data secara kuantitatif, dapat disimpulkan bahwa metode Digital Games Based Learning (DGBL) dapat meningkatkan prestasi serta motivasi belajar mahasiswa dalam mempelajari Bahasa Inggris. Kata kunci: Digital Games Based Learning (DGBL), Prestasi, Motivasi
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Introduction The method in which student’s speaking, listening, writing and reading abilities can be improved are becoming critical issues in which English is used as foreign language. Therefore, developing effective method to increase students’ performance as both language learner and language user, and thus, enhancing students’ English learning achievements has become an important topic. To assist students with developing foreign language proficiency, second language teaching methods have begun to embrace the use of technology, specifically Computers-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) tools (Alatis, 1983; Pusack, 1981; Soper, 1982; Stevens, 1983, as cited in Levent, 2009: 45). One of methods that use Computer-Assisted Language Learning tools is learning through digital games. Prensky (2001: 5) used term “Digital Games Based Learning” to denote the use of computer game in educational content. Digital Games Based Learning is a profoundly new learning method that integrates the use of digital game on learning environment. Although game is most often thought as a pure entertainment, it is important to actually know that it can be enormously powerful tool used to learn. Prensky (2006) stressed that digital game works as learning tool since “all games [basically] already cause player to learn”. Findings from many researchers strengthen such acclaim as they found that digital game has enormously increased students’ learning achievement, especially in learning language (Liu and Chu, 2010; Muller, n.d.; Panoutsopoulos and Sampson, 2012). Prensky (2001:3) described “the process of game playing [as] engaging,” so much that it brings together a great deal of motivation. Therefore, combining games with learning can add potential motivation, massive enough to let the learners stick with their learning process. Levent (2009: 46) further remarked that digital game helps the process of learning to become more engaging as it adds fun and excitement to help students feel more relaxed and comfortable. Purushotma (2005) has suggested that games can be so highly motivating that they can even cause addictive behavior as cited in Levent (2009: 46). As cited in Prensky (2006: 1), Akerman (n.d.) affirmed that “play (game) is our brain’s favorite way of learning things.” Thus, learning new things by
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playing game can be one of the most engaging as well as effective ways to perceive data to our brain. The fact that people feel better, get less tired, and are highly motivated when they do things they enjoy, such as playing games, is the main idea of creating Digital Games Based Learning method. Greatly interested with the use and development of Digital Games Based Learning (DGBL) method in English language learning—especially in enhancing students’ reading and listening skills as well as their learning motivation—the researchers decided to strive this research to address the following two major aims: 1. To know if adventure game enhances students’ English receptive skills 2. To find out the influence of DGBL towards students’ learning motivation Hypothesis The hypothesis of this research is formulated as follow:
“Digital Games Based Learning does influence students’ learning outcomes and motivation”
Digital games based learning There were two essential premises explaining the existence of digital games based learning (Prensky, 2006: 1). The first premise is that today’s learners have changed in some fundamental ways. The fact that students nowadays living in digitally enhanced world, are somewhat have different way of thinking than what former students had. The second premise is that computer can provide new way to motivate today’s students to learn. If one could think what game is actually best at, it would be based on the fact that it could provide motivation to its players. As mentioned by Anyaegbu (2012) “Games are often used for motivational or fun purposes.” Therefore, keeping the students motivated enough (to stick with their educational life) is a very critical matter faced nowadays. Learning methods that were effective in motivating learners in the past might not be able to motivate the learners of today. That is why the proponents of digital games based learning believed (Prensky, 2001; Pivec&Dziabenko, 2003) that digital games based learning is the learning method that could foster not only students’ learning achievement but also their inner motivation.
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However, the use of game as a profoundly new learning method has been thoroughly criticized. As per saying goes “there are always two sides of a coin.” While one side sees the emergence of digital games based learning as a bright light and solution in improving both students’ achievements and motivation, the rest sees it as a merely exaggerated misled effort in combining two radically different things: serious, book-oriented, fixed purposed, rigid activity named learning, with carefree, fun-oriented, time-wasting activity called game. Positive effect of gaming in learning Games are effective not because of what they are, but because of what they embody and what learners are doing as they play a game (Richard Van Eck, 2006). “Games create an environment where education is mostly learnercentered, with a good opportunity for socialization when they are wellorganized, and awakening the will to win and competitive desire inside people”(Squire, 2003: 5).Moreover, game presents simulated situation that often extracted from real world. Students think and understand better when they learn something they have been familiar with. Gee (2003) as cited in McClarty et al. (2012) pointed out “games present a similar situation through simulation, providing us the opportunity to think, understand, prepare, and execute actions”. Another learning benefit one can get from game playing is derived from the fact that game provides opportunities to continue practice despite repeated failures. It also presents immediate feedback and clear objectives. This allows players to change their game play in order to improve their per formance and reach their goals. Game is said to be particularly effective when “Designed to address a specific problem or to teach a certain skill” (Mitchell and Savill-Smith, 2004: 19), for example in encouraging learning in subjects areas such as math, physics and language, where specific objectives can be stated, or when chosen selectively to fulfill the objective intended aforementioned of playing the game, for instance: playing game to enhance spatial, problem-solving and strategic ability or to obtain new knowledge.
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Negative effect of gaming in learning As highlighted by Clark (2003) as cited in Mitchell and Savill-Smith (2004), there are a number of risk factors that can negatively give impact on learning via computer games: 1)
Game objectives may not be compatible with learning objectives.
2)
Games can distract from learning as players concentrate on completing, scoring, and winning instead of focusing on learning.
3)
Games require suspension of belief; it may be difficult to retain learning acquired in that state
4)
Failure to reach male and female players to the same extent
5)
Games risk the learners becoming non socialized people as gaming world is then literally seen as their world instead of their societies (pp. 22-23).
Aside from the bad effect of game is causing on learners, game in general induces severe effects of frequent playing for gamers. This includes health issues, psycho-social issues, and changes in behavior. Hence, players definitely in need to have a control and a good self-management in playing the game and also a good sense of selection in choosing age and task appropriate game. Learning outcomes Learning outcomes measure final result of intervention or program given to the students. It should be measurable as it will identify or observe what the students will achieve, should be able to do, and will know as the effect of the intervention given beforehand. Thus, immediate evidence of these collected knowledge, skills, and ability gathered after intervention is what is called outcomes.
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A learning outcome is a written statement of what the successful student/ learner is expected to be able to do at the end of the module/course unit, or qualification. The key aspect each of the definitions has in common is the desire for more precision and consideration as to what exactly a learner acquires in terms of knowledge and/or skills when they successfully complete a period of learning (Adam, 2004, p. 6).
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Game and reading comprehension Aside from the importance of cognitive and metacognitive strategies, a few studies have addressed the issues related to “motivation” and “engagement” when it comes to reading comprehension and the way to enhances it. As Guthrie et al. (2006) put it:
Engaged reading is based on motivational and cognitive characteristics of the reader…who is intrinsically motivated, builds knowledge, uses cognitive strategies, and interacts socially to learn from text. These engagement processes can be observed in student’s cognitive effort, perseverance, and self-direction in reading (p. 404).
Encouraging learners to reading comprehension can be done by selecting appropriate materials, especially for young readers in their early stages of learning. This selection is very crucial considering the number of selected readers in recent times. That is why—in motivating readers of today—many educational practitioners have begun to embrace game as one of the methods used in enhancing students’ reading achievement. Being labeled as one of solutions in motivating language learner, games as Carlson (1952) as cited in Meizaliana (2009:53) described “. . . are activities used to provide a fun and more relax atmosphere especially . . . for student to acquire a second or foreign language.” Thus, games are believed to help enhancing students’ motivation to learn to read and later to read to learn by providing various contexts of learning materials in a more fun and engaging way. Game and listening comprehension Listening as an active process requires conscious attention and interests as well as physical involvement. Students who indicated high levels of motivation appeared to engage in listening more. “Motivation and metacognition appear to be elements that are part of clusters of variables contributing to variance in L2 listening” (Vandergrift, 1997: 196). Listening to what learners want to listen to and want to try to comprehend might motivate them to listen and to keep on learning. These want and interest might appear in when someone touches with different, unusual way of learning, thus commended on using game in learning language. REGISTER, Vol. 7, No. 1, Juni 2014
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As Verdugo and Belmonte (2007: 87) pointed out: “Digital technology for students, if appropriately selected and organized, can offer a range of opportunities to develop foreign language listening and proficiency in a playful and enjoyable context.” Therefore, in order to motivate and to enhance students’ listening ability, one can afford to use appropriate, task-oriented, listening-produced game. Game enhances learning motivation The first thing one might expect to see while playing game is an increasing motivation. Common wisdom suggests that games are at least motivating, if not educational. Game embodies aspects and characters that engage learners to play. Games contain the pieces necessary to engage students and help them enter a state of flow where “they are fully immersed in their learning environment and energized and focused on the activity they are involved in” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, as cited in McClarty et al., 2012: 14). When complete attention is devoted to the game, a player may lose track of time and not notice other distractions. Purushotma (2005) as cited in Levent (2009: 46) further added that “games can be so highly motivating that they can even cause addictive behavior.” On the other hand, game also creates fantasy, imaginary world which has rich visuals and plenty aesthetics aspects. Such things might attract awe and excitement from its players as it is considered as unique and recognizable feature. Another aspect of game that attains interest is its clear objectives. “Games are played to win or achieve a goal … The key to motivation is winning while remaining challenged” (Becta, 2001: 1). Eventually, all “these components can increase student engagement, and student engagement is strongly associated with student achievement” (McClarty et al., 2012). Research design Participants The population of the study was 68 English Department of IAIN Ar-Raniry students year 2011. The researchers used stratified random sampling technique to specify and determine the final samples of this research. 68
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Stratified random sampling is sampling technique which was based on diversities or stratified qualifications and characteristics that targeted po pulation has (Prasetyo & Jannah, 2009). The researchers stratified population based on students’ game playing frequency and students’ interest in game playing. The researchers used preliminaries questionnaire as a basis to de termine their strata. The researchers distributed the questionnaire to all English department students year 2011and there were 68 students responded to the questionnaire. Final samples were 13 students whom the researchers selected after careful consideration based on end result of preliminaries questionnaire. Data collection This study was a quantitative research. It also applied pre-experimental design with one group pretest-posttest design. According to Sugiyono (2008), one-group pretest-posttest design is a design in which the experimental group experiences both pretest and posttest during the experiment. Further, the data was collected through experimental treatment using digital game, pretest and posttest, and motivational questionnaire. The process of collecting the data would be picturised as follow:
Figure 1: Diagram Outlining the Procedure of The Case Study
Digital game The game used in this research was “Dream Sleuth”. The game was comprised as adventure, point-click, and hidden-object game. This game used as an intervention for five-meeting research. REGISTER, Vol. 7, No. 1, Juni 2014
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Figure 2: “Dream Sleuth” Screenshot
The selection of Dream Sleuth as intervention in this study was for the very reason of finding out appropriate game to foster English language learners’ ability. Looking at how the game had in plate, this game offered mysterious storyline, unique mini games, exciting game play, and the foremost reason of having quite plenty of language learning benefits—especially reading and listening benefits. Tests The researchers handed out two tests for the experimental class: pre-test and post-test. Pretest was given at the beginning of the meeting, before the treatment conducted. Whereas post-test would be given at the end of the meeting, immediately after giving class treatment.
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Pre-test was distributed with the aim of measuring the students’ initial learning achievements before given the treatment. On the other hand, posttest had a purpose of measuring the improvement or differences in students’ learning outcomes after being treated with the game. Both were necessary for the researchers to obtain the data as in to analyze whether there would be influences of digital game based learning on students’ learning outcomes or not. The researchers intended to see students’ learning outcomes. In particular, they wanted to find out two mainstream students’ English learning outcomes, which were listening and reading. Therefore, in designing the test, the researchers created two parts of the test: listening comprehension and reading comprehension test. Listening part consisted of four sections: section I, II, III, and IV. Each section of listening test comprised of five questions. In designing the listening part, the researchers excerpted the audio materials originated from Dream Sleuth game. They used Audacity, an audio editing software, to record, select, part, and save listening part in one complete format of listening material. Meanwhile, reading part consisted of two reading texts: reading text I and II. Each reading text has ten comprehension questions. In selecting reading texts, the researchers carefully examined reading texts and their correlation with the treatment. Reading text I was Aesop fables story, while reading text II was selected based on the theme used in “Dream Sleuth” game. Table 1 Sample of Test
Listening Part
Grandma : Happy birthday grandma! Catherine : _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Catherine! Thank you. It’s going to be a crazy day today with so many _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ coming. According to the writer, what is the true nature of the nurse?
Reading Part
(A)
She is caring
(B)
She is tricky and mean
(C)
She is evil and hateful
(D)
She is truthful
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Questionnaire The researchers applied questionnaire in order to perceive students’ learning motivation. Questionnaire was distributed in the middle of treatment, right after the third session of game playing. Questionnaire used in this research was Learning Motivation through Game Playing Questionnaire (LMGP-Q). The questionnaire was adapted from Keller’s ARCS model used by Kebritchi (2008). The questionnaire consisted of 20 questions with 14 non reversed questions and six reversed questions. Each item of ARCS Model (Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction) comprised of five questions. Table 2 LMGP-Q’s List of Questions 1.
I think this game will be challenging, but neither too easy, nor too hard for me.
2.
There is something interesting 12. It is clear to me how people use the about this game that will game to improve their English skills capture my attention.
3.
This game seems more difficult 13. I will really enjoy completing the task than I would like for it to be in this game
4.
I believe that completing the 14. After working on this game for awhile, task in the game will give me I believe that I will be confident in my a feeling of satisfaction. ability to successfully improve my English skills
5.
It is clear to me how this game 15. I think that the variety of materials, is related to things I already tasks, illustration, etc., will help keep know. my attention on this game.
6.
I believe this game will gain and maintain my interest
16. The technology used to deliver this the game may be frustrating/ irritating.
7.
I believe that the tasks contained in this game will be important to improve my English skills
17. It will feel good to successfully complete this game.
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11. The game is relevant to my interests.
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8.
As I learn more about this game, I am confident that I could learn English through playing
18. The contents of this game do not include information that will be useful to me.
9.
I believe that I will enjoy this game so much that I would like to know more about the learning I got while playing the game
19. I do NOT think that I will be able to really understand what I learn from the game
10. The game seems dry and unattractive.
20. I do not think that this game will be worth my time and effort.
This questionnaire used Likert Scale measurement. There were five scales used in this Likert scale, namely: Not True = 1; Slightly True = 2; Moderately True = 3; Mostly True = 4; and Very True = 5. There were the items marked reversedwhich are stated in a negative manner. For the reversed questions (item 3, item 10, item 16, item 18, item 19, and item 20), researcher would use reversed scoring. That is for these items, 5=1, 4=2, 3=3, 2=4, and 1=5. The range of score for this questionnaire is: 20 – 35 indicates very low learning motivation; 36 – 51 indicates low learning motivation; 52 – 67 indicates moderate learning motivation; 68 – 83 indicates high learning motivation; and 84 – 100 indicates very high learning motivation. Table 3 Reversed and Non-Reversed Motivational Questionnaire’s Questions Items
Questions Non Reversed
Reversed
Attention
2, 6, 15
10, 16
Relevance
5, 7, 11, 12
18
Confidence
1, 8, 14
3, 19
Satisfaction
4, 9, 13, 17
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Research result Students’ learning outcomes Through the use of tests, the researchers found necessary data needed to figure out the answer whether game method applied was significantly influential to enhance students’ learning outcomes. In analyzing the data from the tests, the researchers would use statistical computing program called SPSS (Statistical Product and Service Solution). Table 4 Frequencies Table of Pre-test and Post-test
Mean Median Std. Deviation Variance Minimum
Pretest 13 0 54.2308 57.5000 9.48599 89.984 40.00
Posttest 13 0 71.3462 72.5000 6.00481 36.058 60.00
Maximum
70.00
80.00
N
Valid Missing
Based on the analysis of pretest and posttest, the researchers found that there was difference between mean of pretest (54.23) and posttest (71.35). From these data alone, it can be inferred that there was difference of students’ learning outcomes before and after getting the treatment. To further analyze the improvement of students’ learning outcome, the researchers used formula of paired samples t test, finding that t value was significantly different from t table and p value was much more less than standard sig. value of 0.05. With -t value< -t table (-6.683 < -2.179) and p value< 0.05 (0.000 < 0.05), meaning that the alternative hypothesis stating significant improvement in learning outcomes following the treatment using digital game was statistically accepted.
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Table 5 Paired Samples T Test Paired Differences Std. Std. Error Deviation Mean
Mean
Pair 1
Pretest – -17.1154 Posttest
95% Confidence Interval of the Difference Lower
9.2334 2.5609
T
df
Sig. (2-tailed)
Upper -22.69510 -11.53567 -6.683 12 .000
As many proponents of DGBL claimed that game is significantly influential to students’ achievements if it is appropriately selected. Thus, in regard of such statement, the researchers used the formula of Effect Size to confirm digital game’s treatment significance.
In classifying the criteria of effect size number, the researchers used classifi cation designed by Glass (n.d., as cited in Sutrisno, 2010):
: classified as low : classified as medium
: classified as high
With score 1.80, it can be concluded that game did have significant influence on students’ learning outcomes. Above all, according to scale of effect size range from Glass, this number of effect size indicated high effect. Students’ learning motivation The researcherss distributed motivational questionnaire to their participants. The questionnaire was adapted from Keller’s ARCS model employed by Kebritchi (2008), indicating students’ learning motivation toward the use of digital game. To suit the purpose of their study, the researcherss adapted questions and scales in their designated questionnaire.
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Learning Motivation through Game Playing (LMGP-Q), as it was named, was distributed during the treatment. The researcherss used both numerical and descriptive analysis to explain the questionnaire. After getting the result for questionnaire, the researcherss found that among 13 samples, one student was classified as moderate level of motivated learner, eight as highly motivated learners, and four as very highly motivated learners. Table 6 The Description of Students’ Questionnaire Results No.
Initials
Score
Level
1.
N.F
82
High
2.
I.P
79
High
3.
Y.A
94
Very High
4.
S.F.Y
88
Very High
5.
I.R
86
Very High
6.
N.U
80
High
7.
Aul.
71
High
8.
D.R.R
69
High
9.
R.A
60
Moderate
10.
O.R.P
83
High
11.
M.D.U
75
High
12.
N.M
87
Very High
13.
N.H
80
High
79.54
High
Mean
In accordance of each items in ARCS model, with Attention (M= 4.14), Relevance (M = 3.88), Confidence (M = 3.89), and Satisfaction (M = 4.02) resulting in positive attitude and motivation from participants in general. These result demonstrated participants’ positive interest, confidence, satisfaction, and attitude toward using game to enhance their learning experience and motivation.
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Table 7 Mean of ARCS Model Items Items
Score Average (Mean)
Attention
4.14
Relevance
3.88
Confidence
3.89
Satisfaction
4.02
Hypothesis Now that the result of the research had been found, the researcherss could analyze the hypothesis. Statistically speaking, hypothesis “Digital Games Based Learning does influence students’ learning outcomes and motivation” was accepted, as the result indicates improvement on students’ learning outcomes (-6.683 < -2.179) and positive indicator for learning motivation (M = 79.54). Eventually, it can be summarized that digital game based learning has significant influence on students’ learning outcomes and motivation. In the end, concluding that formulated hypothesis is accepted. Conclusions Conclusions The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of digital games based learning on students’ learning outcomes and motivation. The population of the study was 68 English Department students year 2011. The total 13 samples were derived from the use of stratified random sampling which divided the population into three, from which the researchers selected her samples. This study was a quantitative research. It also applied pre-experimental design with one group pretest-posttest design. The data was collected through experimental treatment using digital game, pretest and posttest, and motivational questionnaire. The process of collecting the data was held for five sessions in March, 2013. In analyzing the data from the tests, the researchers used paired sample t test to find out if there was difference of score following students’ engagement
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in game-playing. Further use of effect size formula was also considered in order to find out how big of effect was actually the digital games based learning method had in enhancing students’ learning outcomes. Moreover, in analyzing the data of motivational questionnaire, the researchers was setting out standard value for each item and reversed item, accumulating them into final score and describing them into three level group of students’ learning motivation. Since the researchers used Keller’s ARCS model, the researchers then analyzed each ARCS item—considering its dimensional difference within learning motivation. After analyzing the data and discussing its result, provided below are the conclusions of study: 1. There was significant improvement of students’ learning outcomes, in particular reading and listening skills, after indulging within the treatment using digital game. The significance of digital game to enhance students’ English skills was shown through the result of data analysis. The difference of pretest’s mean (M = 54.23) to that of posttest’s (M = 71.35) signaling that there was difference of students’ before and after treatment’s score. Further use of paired samples t test strengthened the difference, by resulting in -t value (-6.683) lower than that of -t table’s (-2.179). The significance of students’ improvement were statistically calculated using effect size which resulted in high significance level of influence of digital games based learning on students’ learning outcomes. In summary, it can be concluded that DGBL did enhance students’ learning outcomes. 2. There was influence of digital games based learning toward students’ learning motivation since the result of motivational questionnaire showed that students mostly reacted positively toward the use of game to learn English. Mean score (M = 79.54) was the proof that in average, participants indulged in this research were indicated as highly motivated learners. This indication of high learning motivation was clearly shown during the researchers’ research—having seen her parti cipants playing continuously with a lot of curiosity; breaking in joy for finishing certain levels; or simply seen them focusing intensely since the level was pretty difficult. In the end, it all proved that digital games based learning indeed has effect on students’ learning motivation.
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3. Through the analysis of Keller’s ARCS items, the researchers could deduce the following assumptions: (1) Majority of students believed that digital games based learning could increase their interest and attention toward English learning as it provided various tasks, rich visuals, and challenging levels, all provided in English; (2) students realized that the game, if appropriately selected, could enhance their English learning, especially in reading and listening; and (3) students would feel satisfaction, excitement, challenge, and accomplishment once they finish the game. These resulting in students’ feeling more motivated and enthusiastic toward learning English through gameplaying. Future works For future researchers, the researcherss suggest to ensue further exploration toward the effect of digital games in learning environment. The following issues can be considered for future research: Firstly, it is helpful to examine the effects of the same or similar game used in this study with different participants. Secondly, various findings for the influence of the games in this study, justify further investigation to better identify the cause of the game effects on achievement and motivation. Thirdly, as this study relied only on statistical calculation, further and deeper investigation using qualitative instruments on effects of the games on motivation should be conducted. Finally, the researchers recommended other researchers to work on the same background with a more complete design and a greater number of parti cipants. References Adam, S. 2004. Using Learning Outcomes. In Report for United Kingdom Bologna Seminar, Bologna. Guthrie, J. T., Wigfield, A., Humenick, N. M., Perencevich, K. C., Taboada, A., & Barbosa, P. 2006. Influences of Stimulating Tasks on Reading Motivation and Comprehension. The Journal of Educational Research, 99 (4), 232-246.
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Levent, U. 2009. An Evaluative Checklist for Computer Games Used for Foreign Language Vocabulary Learning and Practice: Vocaword Sample. Novitas-ROYAL, 3(1), 45-59. McClarty, K. L., Orr, A., Frey, P. M., Dolan, R. P., Vassileva, V., &McVay, A. 2012. A Literature Review of Gaming in Education. London: Pearson Pubs. Meizaliana, M. 2009. Teaching Structure through Games to the Students of Madrasyah Aliyah Negeri 1 Kepahiang, Bengkulu (Doctoral dissertation). Universitas Diponegoro, Semarang, Indonesia. Mitchell, A., &Savill-Smith, C. 2004. The Use of Computer and Video Games for Learning: A Review of the Literature. Wales: Learning and Skills Development Agency. Prasetyo, B., &Jannah, L. M. 2006. Metode Penelitian Kuantitatif. Jakarta: Raja Grafindo Persada. Prensky, M. 2001. The Digital Game-based Learning Revolution. Retrieved from http://www.marcprensky.com/.../prensky%20-%20ch1-digital%20 game- on October 9, 2012. Prensky, M. 2006. Computer Games and Learning: Digital Game-based Learning. Retrieved from http://www.marcprensky.com/.../prensky%20-%20 ch1-digital%20game-... on October 9, 2012. Squire, K. D. 2003. Video Games in Education. Int. J. Intell. Games & Simulation, 2(1), 49-62. Sugiyono. 2008. Metode Penelitian Pendidikan. Bandung: Alfabeta. Vandergrift, L. 1997. The Comprehension Strategies of Second Language (French) Listeners: A Descriptive Study. Foreign Language Annals, 30(3), 387-409. Verdugo, D. R., & Belmonte, I. A. 2007. Using Digital Stories to Improve Listening Comprehension with Spanish Young Learners of English. Language Learning & Technology, 11(1), 87-101.
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Autonomous Learning Writing Promoted by the Use of Facebook Group KhairilRazali UIN ArRaniry Aceh Jl. SyechAbdurra’ufKopelma Darussalam Banda Aceh
[email protected]
HusnulKhatimah UIN ArRaniry Aceh Jl. SyechAbdurra’ufKopelma Darussalam Banda Aceh
[email protected] Abstract In aglobalized world, internet facilities and social media are becoming increasingly important and take a strategic role in most of human activities. One of them is in the education and learning sector. This qualitative research explored the role of a Facebook group to increase students’ autonomy in learning writing. The experiment was conducted with qualitative methodology to 6 students as a sample. The process of data collection is done through the media Facebook group which was developed during the data collection through observation and interviews. The research lasted for 30(thirty) days in which researchers became the administrator and facilitator. From the process of collecting and analyzing the data assumed that Facebook group influenced the autonomy and promote independent of students learning in writing.
Keywords: Facebook group, Students autonomy, Learning writing
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Abstrak Dalamdunia yang global, sarana internet dan media social menjadi semakin penting dan mengambil peran strategis dalam segala lini kehidupan manusia. Salah satunya adalah di sector pendidikan dan pembelajaran. Penelitian ini melakukan explorasi kualitatif tentang eran Facebook Group terhadap peningkatan kemandirian siswa dalam belajar writing. Penelitian dilaksanakan dengan pendekatan kualitatif terhadap 6 siswa sebagai sampel. Proses pengumpulan data dilakukan melalui media facebook group yang di desain untuk proses penelitian ini, observasi dan wawancara. Penelitian berlangsung selama 30 (tiga puluh) hari dimana peneliti menjadi pengelola akun dan fasilitator. Dari proses pengumpulan dan analisa disimpulkan bahwa media Facebook group mempromosikan dan mempengaruhi ke mandiriaan siswa dalam kemandirian belajar writing. Kata kunci: Facebook group, Kemandirian belajar siswa, Belajar menulis Introduction Facebook is a global large social media that boosts more than 100 million followers, and it is one of the fastest-growing and best-known sites on internet these days. Initiated and established by Zuckerberg in 2004, Facebook as a network at first targeted high school and college students but it goes globally and actively gains its popularity of all people ages. (Blattner & Fiori, 2009). Literally, Hayashi (2011) has studied about the use of Facebook that contributed the increased students’ motivation and language output. She explained that in Facebook students can enjoy written communication freely by sharing their ideas, via Facebook status or note. They also can comment to other’s posting, and or share link, and video as well. However even so, she just tends to see the use of Facebook in general and focusing on the general language learning. Learning writing in the classroom is not adequate to foster students’ competence. Therefore, the demand of autonomous learning methods and techniques by learning outside classroom is increased. Autonomous learning as defined by Holec (cited in Hayashi, 2011) as “The ability to take charge of
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one’s learning,” had grown considerably in the field of language education. Lee (2011) stated that autonomous learning does not require learners to work in isolation; rather, they socially construct knowledge by actively engaging in the process of learning. Through social interaction, learners develop a capacity to receive information, and then to create a new perspective. It means, to lead students to get their autonomy in learning, the instructors must be able to create such community that appropriate for this need. Fortunately, besides enhancing students’ motivation to love writing, Facebook also provides an additional media to facilitate this need. One of the examples is Facebook group. ‘Facebook group’ is a feature that is available on the social networking site Facebook, where students are allowed to participate communicate and interact via post and chat for a specific purpose with unlimited number of people, and of course with unlimited usage of time. This article mainly discusses the use of Facebook groups only. Actually, Yunus et al (n.d) has studied about the connection of Facebook group and learning writing. However, their focus is only on how Facebook develop students’ preparation process in writing, which is brainstorming, before they are doing the real writing. Then, they looked at the issues from teacher point of view with having the result ‘How to teach writing to ELS students by using Facebook group?’ Otherwise, this present study would explore more at how ‘Facebook Group Promoting Students Autonomy in Writing Learning?’ with the focus more on students point of view. According to Yunus et al (n.d) method, for this study, a Facebook group was created specifically for the purpose of providing students with a space where they were in control of the content and the direction of their learning, as well as providing more opportunities for students to write. The researcher merely acted as a facilitator for the group which apply scaffolding role, to give temporary support to help student move from lower stage to higher stage of development. Facebook group also allowed for almost immediate feedback and fun interaction that the researcher hoped will motivate students in improving their writing. The researcher hypothesized that Facebook group will benefit the students in motivating them to learn writing autonomously.
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Facebook Facebook has been a leading social media currently. Facebook has been gaining market share since launched in February 2004. It obtains over eight million users in the U.S. alone and expands worldwide to eight other EnglishSpeaking Countries with more to follow (Yani, 2011). It started its corporation with high schools in the United States in September 2005 and followed crossing the Atlantic to universities in the UK (Yani, 2011). Now, the site becomes one of the biggest web sites in the world visited by 400 million people in a month. In Indonesia, currently stands at the second largest Facebook market in the world. The fact, despite of its relatively slow internet connection compared to other countries, its rates grown rate from year to year that has been tremendously high. Bucher (as cited in Yani, 2011) reported the top 30 countries by number of active Facebook users with Facebook data from 1st April 2011 compared to April 2009 and April 2010, which is showed that Indonesia precisely the second stair after USA and above the UK. It is surprise when we recall back to the Facebook History development which showed that UK is the second home of Facebook in the beginning. However, Sukmana (2011) states there are reasons statistically lead Indonesia at the second place of followers Facebook growth. Culturally, Indonesian is mostly based on sharing, communicating, and solidarity. Face book facilitates Indonesian people to connect with their families, friends and collegues in their lives easily. As more and more people get connected through Facebook, people are not able to refuse to join it since most of their friends had been there. In addition, the fact mobile phone subscribers have reached more than 200 million in 2011 in Indonesia. It shows an increasingly trend. Another important reason is the demands and interests towards Facebook has led to innovative and impressive development of Facebook website, there fore, it leads to attracts users through its features and functions. Indeed, by the reason, exclusive network, photo-tagging, news feed, and great application including Facebook group resulted to a community-based cultural country like Indonesia promotes of the existence of Facebook and its group allowspeople to manage communication, moreover, it gives in some way Facebook increases its development in Indonesian Market rapidly.
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Furthermore, Facebook has successfully won the heart of Indonesian people, moreover the young adults. Communication on Facebook group is mostly done in written type, therefore this study would like to find out how this popular media involves in developing students’ autonomy in learning writing. To somehow the students’ autonomy in learning is totally important in learning writing. Learner autonomy The origin theory and practice of autonomy in language learning emerged from Knowel’sresearch of self-directed learning (1975, cited in Kocak, 2003) which defined as a leading figure in adult education, as a process in which individuals accept responsibility for all the decisions concerned with their learning. In the 1970s and 1980s the focuses on adult self-directed learning was becoming popular. Then, the term of autonomy firstly was introduced by Holec in 1981. It begins with the council of Europe’s Modern Language project, which led to the publication of Holec’s seminar report, in which autonomy is defined as ‘The ability to take charge of one’s own learning’ (cited in Benson, 2006). However, the practical application focuses on self-directed learning and led the development of self-access centers and learner training as focal point for experimentation. Therefore, as the more recent literature has begun to use the term ‘selfdirected learning’ together with the concept of learning autonomy in the context of institutional education context, it treats autonomous learning as a synonym for self-directed learning. The only distinction between autonomy and self-directed learning is clearly emphasized by Dickinson (1987, cited in Kocak, 2003) who said that in self-directedlearning, learners accept responsibility for all decisions related to their learning but not necessarily implement those decisions; on the other hand, in autonomous learning the learners are entirely responsible for all the decisions concerned with their learning and also the implementation of these decisions. Nevertheless, at that time, the issues of autonomous learning still involved around adult learning which is held out of the classroom-based. Then, in his book on learner training, Dickinson (1992, cited in Benson, 2003) argued that learner often acted ‘independently,’ both cognitively and behaviorally, REGISTER, Vol. 7, No. 1, Juni 2014
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in the classroom, while Dam (1995, cited in Benson 2003) demonstrated how principle of autonomy could be integrated into secondary school classroom without self-access or formal learner training. This then turn to the application of learner autonomy in the classroom context, which was as the second wave of the interest in learner autonomy in language learning and teaching. Furthermore, Allwright (1988: 35, cited in Benson 2003) suggested for the re-conceptualizing autonomy if it was to be used to the classroom context. It is because, he defined autonomy as the long-life learning which was not being adequate captured by the classroom environment. This idea then was supported by the development of computer and internet usage for the academic educational purposes. This is third wave of the context for growing of the interest of autonomy in recent years. Indeed, the “tendency has been towards a blurring of the distinctions, leading to new and often complex understandings of the role of autonomy in language teaching and learning” (Benson, 2003). Language skills can best be developed if the learner develops awareness of his or her own learning, and of the strategies and styles that are available. Strategic competence means being able to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate one’s learning, and making use of all available opportunities both in and outside the classroom. Autonomy is often taken, mistakenly we believe, to be a solitary condi tion. However more and more writers are stressing the need for interaction and negotiation. Dam (1995, cited in Nordlund, n.d.) stressed the social dimension that “learner autonomy is characterized by a readiness to take charge of one’s own learning in the service of one’s needs and purposes. This entails a capacity and willingness to act independently and in co-operation with others, as a socially responsible person.” Therefore, in this learning, every participant is encouraged to response to each other writing, whether to appreciate it or to revise it. Their participation in commenting others would be well-observed. An important part of language-learning awareness is the admission that a lot of learning goes on the outside the classroom. There has been considerable debate over whether autonomy is just another Western concept that is being forced on cultures that do not share the same values. However,
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there have been autonomous systems successfully applied and adopted in a wide range of cultures. This indicates that the problem may be more a misunderstanding about the deep values of different societies. Individual differences in learning styles, for instance, may be more important than learning strategies that have been acquired in a different classroom culture. Furthermore, autonomous learning can be developed in almost any context and with any type of learner, but the context and culture have to be taken into account. Autonomous learning of writing Writing is a task, described by Levy and Olive as “one of the most complex activities that people can accomplish” (Dion, M. N., 2011). It is undeniable that the hardest skill in English learning is writing which require learner’s competency to receipt the information, process it, and at least, produce it. Seriously, learning writing is inadequate if only rely on the “two hours or four hours” learning in the classroom. Writing is about the long processes, which require more time, more effort, as well as more guidance. Indeed, learners need to learn more outside the classroom in order to be a good writer, especially English writer. It is undeniably that the demand of autonomous learning in writing is such a crucial issue to be focused on. Therefore, in this study I would like to explore on how autonomous learning of writing could be developed by using Facebook Group Media, which is provided more space for the learning outside the classroom, but with the consideration that the learners still in touch with their social environment, as well as friends, teachers, or even English native speakers or writers. As well as a complex subject, English writing has so large scope to be covered to, and therefore would be impossible conducting research on all aspect of it. Nevertheless, considering time limitation, participants’ basic competence, I have to limit the writing scope into two authentic basic writing, that are; writing comment, and writing a paragraph. In order to help the participants learn successfully, I provided the instructional process by using scaffolding approach, which was started from the lower level to the next. In this situation, I would start the learning process from the comment writing, and then paragraph writing. To guide the
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participants to gain better achievement, along with those writing instruction, I provided a slight explanation and basic links, and a rubric, so that they could monitor their learning, as well as their peer learning. In recent years, interest in students’ autonomy has grown considerably in the field of language education (e.g., Benson, 2003). Furthermore, along with the development of internet and its usage, there are also many studies that figured out about how is the internet usage can be adopted to the learning process, or facilitated the learning. Facebook as the most popular Social Net working Site (SNS) in the world now day also gained the attention of academic researchers, especially in the language learning issues. Albertson (2011) studied the influence of Facebook to students’ grammatical and pragmatic awareness; he did this study among Japanese learners of English that showed Facebook can lead students to be more aware about the grammatical and pragmatic used in daily communication. It is emphasized by Wu P. and Hsu L’s study that deal with the connection of Facebook and EFL Learning (n.d). In their action research they got the result that Facebook improve students’ language competence, as well as improving their motivation. Their research is in a line with Nowland’s study which more focuses on students’ motivation and autonomous learning. His result suggests the teacher to not only “teach a language, but to also inform and instruct how to study outside the classroom,” and Facebook gladly provide it if the teacher understands to lead the students use it wisely. In addition, Blattner and Fiori (2009) conducted study more specific on Facebook usage in the classroom activities which was also resulting good conclusion on Face book usage. Obviously, if that circumstance was happening, the English learning process by using Facebook will become useless. As Wu P. and Hsu L. (n.d) concluded that the external factors, such as; “1) Audience, 2) quantity and quality of feedback from peers, 3) Topic preference, 4) Upcoming assignment and examination and 5) novelty effect,” will become the disturbance of the learning process.
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Research design Participants We conducted the research at the second grade students of Madrasah AliyahNegeri (MAN) Model Banda Aceh. The population of the research was 130 students. However, there was only 114 students participated in answering questionnaires. Nevertheless, to get the detail of qualitative data, we limited the samples into six participants purposively; by giving them the questionnaires to select the appropriateness. The researchers distributed questionnaires to explore of how often they signed in Facebook, Facebook group, their writing passion, and their writing interest which is proved by how often they write a diary or anything a day. Data collection This study applied a descriptive qualitative approach. It explores under standing of a central phenomenon. There were three major procedures in collecting the data. They were observations, interviews and documents analysis. The research was carried on the Facebook group that the researchers created for this study purpose. Then research samples were added through their Facebook account into the group developed. To begin the conversation flow, the researchers started the conversation through simple and free topics started from free writing to introduce them. They research respondents were free to write anything they would like to such as their activities, and so on. To support the collection of the detail qualitative data, the learning activities were done merely in Facebook Group environment for 30 days. The observation activities were carried out on Facebook Group. The learning process in the Facebook group was activated through “posting” as the instructional learning, and “comment” as the learning response to one another. To attract students, topics posted in the group were different from regular classroom learning process. It maintains more approaching to the basic learning of writing; which is more authentic and more needed as a base of their learning writing development, such as writing a good comment on the internet, and writing a good paragraph. Therefore, any of the participants’ posting, both assignment and free posting, and comment
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in the Facebook Group were the document that would be analyzed for the research need. Discussion The result of observation and document analysis The primary data for this research was the observation data from the Facebook group environment, which was more detail and comprehensive. Therefore, all of the participants’ postings and comments in Facebook group were data of the research. Actually, according to Thanasaulas’s (2000), autonomous learning emphasized as the “path” of the learning process in which the learners go through, and it was not a product that can be produced, moreover in the very short period of time. It means, it is adequate hard to measure the autonomous learning. Therefore, in order to analyze and measure the participants’ auto nomous learning of English writing development during one month learning activities, we adopted Reinder’s (2010) Eight-Stages of autonomous learning process as the patron for this measurement. Each of the stages highlights the learners in learning autonomously. The eight-stages were as cycle that could not be torn up each other. Those stages are; identifying needs, selecting goals, planning learning, selecting resources, selecting learning strategies, practice, monitoring the progress, and the last was assessment and revision. Furthermore, in order to analyze those stages thoroughly, I will explain them separately; 1.
Identifying needs
In this stage, before the learning was starting, the learners were asked to decide what they need to learn, and what condition they need in order to learn better. Therefore, we asked them to decide the rules of this group learning activities that need to be obeyed by all of the participants. In order to stimulate their opinion involvement; we suggested 3 rules to be applied; 1) be active and participate enthusiastically, 2) be respectful to each other by using well or polite language, and 3) be brave to talk and do not afraid of making mistake. However, those rules were opened to be eliminated or accepted, as well as the full opportunity for them to add other rules that theyneed. In this identifying
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needs stage, only two participants (C and No) who decided what they need by adding other rules through their comments, but other participants (V, Na, I, and R) gave no responses. v C: “I should add? no. 4. do not neglect the task given by admin. no.5 not active at night always, but when the sun is not setting too n often comment on and make suggestions. and that’s all I can say. participation please!” v No: “I agree with chohaekyungevilmagnae but, sorry maybe I can’t active at night without the participation of its members will be difficult to realize that learning to our liking with” 2.
Selecting goals
In this stage, the learners were asked to decide what the goals of our learning in this group are. They need to know and elaborate what they want to learn, in short, what kind of writing they want to master in through this learning media. Therefore, to help them think, we suggested them to learn about descriptive and/or narrative paragraph, but also with the same consideration that they might choose and decide their own. However, they had to elaborate why they need to learn and how. 3.
Planning of learning
At this stage, there were no other participants were responding, the conclusion that other participants also agreed with those needs and goals that had been settled by C and No. Therefore, the learning process was started. It began with the writing comment learning. We posted a brief basic knowledge about how to write a good comment on the internet. Then, they explored their writing comment competency by commenting on other people’s English posting, and reported them to the group, as well as their analysis of other comments in that posting. Then, every of them had to comment and revise each other report about writing comment. Trying to understand the postings and the link given about comment, all of the participants have their own way in learning, as well as their strategy to plan their own learning. The participants wrote a reflection on the problem, the feeling toward the learning, etc. one of the participant reflected as follows; “I like study about write comment, because I can know new vocabulary from other, but sometimes I can’t understand all” REGISTER, Vol. 7, No. 1, Juni 2014
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Nevertheless, in the next learning topic, learning about writing paragraph, almost all of the participants wrote their reflection about learning of writing paragraph. In this reflection writing section, a participant, V reflected based on the reflection guideline, but she misunderstood the “planning learning” meaning in this context which was talking about the planning about how to learn the materials, but she talked about “the future plan.” She explained about her future plans as “2. My plan after this I can learn to practice in daily life and I plan one more I want to learn to speak like a tourist, they understand my language and I can understand their language as well.” Fortunately, in this turn C understood the instruction well, but she wrote shorter reflection than the previous one. There are only several questions were covered in No’s reflection, but it was very confusing answer about planning learning question; “lesson planning is done well, but to realize in need of sacrifice and hard work of both the recipient and the giver. Not all of the planning we can do well or according to plan lots of obstacles in this regard occurred.” 4.
Selecting resources
The learners selected their own learning sources. The participants were free to check and search any others as many as they wanted to. According to the explanation in stage 3, at this stage, there were only three participants (C, V, and No) explained their selecting resource process, while two others (Na and I) were only talking about their feeling and one participant was giving no response. In this stage, C elaborated that she did not visit any other link because she felt that the link given was adequate for her learning as follows;
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Otherwise, V said that she visit other link to help her understand what she read in the given link, as she said “I’ve also seen other people’s links, if I am unsure of my mind, I saw it aims to correct my mistakes.” however, unluckily, she did not mention the links she had visited to. This is in accordance with No’s thought, which was visiting other links because she thought that learning something was not enough by visiting one link, as she said “of course because we can understand the learning of a variety of things not just one link only goal that we get more banyak pengetahuan.” 5.
Selecting learning strategies.
The detail of those three participants’ learning strategies were C elaborated in her first reflection that her learning strategies were by speaking, reading, writing, and listening, but in the second reflection she wrote that arranging time is her strategy in learning, as she said “to arrange a time to learn.” Otherwise, V explained that her learning strategies was by trying to understand the materials giving by guessing and if she failed to guest, she would ask me directly, and she really did it, as she said “I am attempting guessing yourself what tasks the teacher, if I do not understand also recently asked directly at the teacher.” The last is No, which was writing her learning strategies by trying to find the meaning of the material, and therefore she tried to look at the digital dictionary, AlFA link, and asking her friends, and very rare she asked me.
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6. Practice In this stage, the learners are asked to practice their learning by writing based on the task given.The task that was given had been designed based on the autonomous learning development consideration. Therefore, their partici pation in fulfilling the task by writing showed how their autonomous learning in writing developed. To help them practice writing, in the beginning of the learning, I asked the participants to do free writing about themselves as the introduction. For this activity, all of the participants (C, V, Na, No, I, and R) were participating very well. Indeed, before the learning was started, three participants (C, No, and V) had been starting writing by asking other participants’ condition and/ or just saying hello and good night, and Na also participated commenting on those posting. Furthermore, in the activity of “how to write a good comment” material posted the participants practiced writing comment by exploring comments of other people outside the group and posted its report in the group, even though those posting did not meet the deadline that had been settled together before. However, there are two participants (C and R) who were merely analyzing other people’s comment, but they did not providing any comment in that posting. 7.
Monitoring progress
The “monitoring progress” not only can be explored through the “seen check,” it also can be seen from their opinion about the learning. Therewas one participant (C) who showed her opinion about the writing comment learning, as she said “oh come on guys .... please, further comments.. do not be quiet like this.. I’m bored -_-“ Interestingly 100% students participated at this stages, but with the detail that 69% of participant were highly participated observing others’ posting, and only 15% who were critically giving opinion about the learning progress and 52% were participating well, because they missed the last 5 posting and they did not give any opinion through the learning progress. 8.
Assessment and revision.
In this last stage, the learners were asked to assess their peers learning as
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well as theirs. Therefore, their feedbacks for other participants were observed through their comments, but the feedbacks that assess others’ posting will only be counted. In this stage, the participants’ participation decreased than previous stages. There were only three participants (C, V and R) who provided feedback to assess other participants’ posting, but others were giving none. However, each of them only wrote one feedback in each learning step; C only wrote one feedback for writing comment learning in No’s posting, but she did not provide any feedback for the writing paragraph learning. Otherwise, V and R did not provide any assessment feedback in writing comment learning, but they gave a feedback for their pair in the writing paragraph learning. Furthermore, after assessment process (assessing others’ posting and their own posting) the participants were asked to revise their posting according to the assessment. Nevertheless, for the revision process, only one participant (V) who did; she revised her paragraph, and others did none; even I and No whose paragraph was revised by the participants above. Data interpretation The result of Facebook group observation and document analysis shows that Facebook group media promotes students autonomous learning. The “practice” stages are considered as the main stages in writing learning, where all of the participants (100%) fully engaged participating. All of the participants actively practice writing. In addition, all of the participants also showed full involvement in monitoring the progress. In addition, the interviews data exposed participants enjoy the learning process and the practice through media (Facebook Group). Of six other stages, the participants showed different level of partici pation. Where for “selecting resources, selecting learning strategies”, and assessment, there were only three participants showed the engagement, and for “planning learning, setting goals, and identifying needs” there were only two participants showed the involvement. Nevertheless, from the Facebook observation and document analysis, there is one participant (C) who was actively participated in the group, and fulfilled all of the eight stages of autonomous learning, but she did not realized that the Facebook group had promote her to learn writing autonomously. It REGISTER, Vol. 7, No. 1, Juni 2014
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can be seen from her interview answer that “the learning activity we had done in the group was not motivated me to love English writing.” Otherwise, other participants’ participation level is; V fulfilled 6 stages, No fulfilled 5 stages, R fulfilled 3, and the last Na and I fulfilled 2 stages. In fact, the interviews data reflected the only factor of their problem in participating the learning in the group is the timing which students had timing conflict between participating in the research and completing the school assignments. Since “selecting goals, selecting learning, and assessment” had to be written in their reflection and it was done in the last time of the learning, it was approaching to their final examination timing and therefore they could not participate actively. The participants stated that they love this type of learning which is more fun and relax. Even R and “I” that was fulfilling only two stages, they answered that they loved this kind of learning which was providing a lot advantages, especially for developing their English vocabulary, writing comment, and writing a paragraph. Indeed, “I” showed high enthusiasm of this learning and said that she wanted to be a member in other Facebook groups that provides English learning. Actually her answer and the participation in the group were contradictory, but then she explained that she got problem in accessing the internet connection. Therefore, it can be concluded that the Facebook group promote students’ autonomy in learning writing, even though it was not significant. Conclusion This study concludes that the Facebook group promoted students’ autonomy in learning English writing. It promotes students to practice writing more often, and also promotes students monitor the learning process. One of the reasons that the learners felt learning writing in the Facebook group as more fun and relax compared to routine classroom situation. However, for the selecting learning resources, selecting learning strategies, assessment, identifying needs, and setting goals the learners suffered from difficulty due to final examination and school assignments of students. Therefore, it is urgent to consider Facebook Group as a media in learning language mainly. The fact that
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it could promote autonomy; moreover, teacher should take consideration in a way to motivate students. References Albertson. 2011..Facebook Use and Pragmatic/Grammatical Awareness Among Japanese Learners of English. Department of English, Central Connecticut State University New Britain, Connecticut. Benson, P. 2006. Autonomy in Language Teaching and Learning. State of The Art Article. United Kingdom; Cambridge University Press. Retrieved February 5, 2013, fromhttp://www.google.com/url?sa=t &rct=j&q=book%3B+autonomous+learnig+&source=web&cd=10 &cad=rja&ved=0CGgQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww4.pucsp. br%2Finpla%2Fbenson_artigo.pdf&ei=HyJUUa_xCobIrQet0ICoAQ& usg=AFQjCNHkLVbX1wrAUJCNrsJIm6KUTc3crw&bvm=bv.4434278 7,d.bmk Blattner and Fiori. 2009. Facebook in the Language Classroom: Promises and Possibilities. International Journal Instructional Technology and Distance Learning.ISSN 1550-6908. P. 17-28. Retrieved March 6, 2013,from https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web &cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Flitu.tu.ac. th%2Fkm%2F05-8%2520Introduction%2520to%2520abstract%2520Wri ting%25201.pdf&ei=ET2wUfz0BMyGrAeIvIHQAQ&usg=AFQjCNHv YLM786D2gyFS_sv-zY7qckJEcw&bvm=bv.47534661,d.bmk Dion, M. C. 2011. Tools to Enhance Second Language Writing Autonomy: can we do things better? In Gardner, D. (Ed.), Fostering Autonomy in Language Learning (67-75).Gaziantep: Zirve University. Hayashi, P. 2011. A Learning Success Story Using Facebook, Self-Access learning Journal, 2 (4), Canada. Kocak, Aifer. 2003. A Study on Learners’ Readiness for Autonomous Learning of English as a Foreign Language. The Graduate School of Social Sciences of Middle East Technical University. Retrieved March 6, 2013 Lee, L. 2011. Blogging: Promoting Learner Autonomy and Intercultural Competence Through Study Abroad. Language Learning &Technology, Volume 15, Number 3 pp. 87–109. REGISTER, Vol. 7, No. 1, Juni 2014
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Nordlund, J. (n.d.). From Here to Autonomy: Autonomous Learning Modules (ALMS). Helsinki: Helsinki University Language Centre. Retrieved March 10, 2013, from http://www20.gencat.cat/docs/Llengcat/ Documents/Publicacions/Publicacions%20en%20linea/Arxius/VII_ annex1.pdf Reinders, H., &Balcikanli, C. 2011. Learning to Foster Autonomy: The Role of Teacher Education Material. Studies inSelf-Access Learning Journal, 2 (1), 15-25. Sukmana, J. March. 2007.Why Facebook is So Popular in Indonesia. Retrieved December, 9, 2013, from http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/03/07/whyFacebook-is-so-popular-in-indonesia/ Thanasoulas, D. 2000. What is learner Autonomy and How Can It be Fostered? The Internet TESL Journal, Vol. VI, No. 11. Retrieved March 8, 2013, from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Thanasoulas-Autonomy.html Yunus, et al (n.d), Using Facebook Group in Teaching ESL Writing, ISBN: 9781-61804-060-2. Retrieved March 6, 2013, from https://www.google. com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved= 0CDEQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wseas.us%2Fe-library%2F conferences%2F2011%2FMontreux%2FCOMICICBIO%2FCOMICICB IO-11.pdf&ei=2kewUeSNIcuGrAesqYHQCw&usg=AFQjCNEeJQYlx bNp5oCsQanrNnTcjtYtTQ&bvm=bv.47534661,d.bmk Yani, Muhammad. 2011. The Most Common Grammar Mistakes Made By English Students When Updating Facebook Status (a Study Case of English Students of Tarbiyah Faculty, IAIN Ar-Raniry.Tarbiyah Faculty IAIN Ar-Raniry Darussalam-Banda Aceh. Wu, P., & Hsu, L. (n.d.). EFL Learning on Social Networking Site?: An action Research on Facebook. Retrieved March 6, 2013, from http:// www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=efl%20learning%20on%20 social%20networking%20site%3F%3A%20an%20action%20 research%20on%20Facebook&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&sqi=2 &ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftlvconf.files.wordpress. com%2F2011%2F04%2Ftlv-paper-wu.pdf&ei=DGdRUeWgIoaKrgeOx YEw&usg=AFQjCNEbiATaCVv8WYCzp19nwsRJ2570ag&bvm=bv.44 342787,d.bmk
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The Interlanguage Interference on the Difficulties of Building Question Sentences by the Second Year Students of MA As Soorkaty Salatiga Sari Famularsih English Department of Educational Faculty State Islamic Studies Institute (STAIN) Salatiga Jl. Tentara Pelajar No. 2 Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia
[email protected] Abstract This study is aimed to elaborate the interlanguage interference of the difficulties which are faced by 40 second year students of MA As Soorkaty Salatiga in academic year of 2004-2005 in building question sentences and the sources of difficulties. The research is conducted by such kind of test. The total number of test are 20 items, consist of 5 yes-no questions, 5 W-H questions, and 10 tag questions which is done in a written essay form. Based on the analysis, the result shows some conclusions. Firstly, the researcher finds the types of difficulties problems are faced by the students in building question mastery, such as: (1) building yes-no question sentences in translation the word “apakah”, that is related with the use of to be. (2) Building interrogative word question sentences in translation the words “apa”, “kapan”, “milik siapa”, etc. That are related with the use of “what”, “when”, “whose”, etc. (3) Completing the tag question sentences with the proper auxiliary based on tense of the sentences. The most difficulties in building question sentences are especially in yes-no question form by using the word “apakah”. In the term of interlanguage, the students’ errors are mostly included in expressing meaning by the words and grammar of the first language. The source of difficulties which have been analyzed are mostly caused by inter lingual and intra lingual transfer.
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Keywords: interlanguage, question sentence, interlingual transfer, intralingual transfer Introduction Teaching English in any grades of institutions cannot leave one element, which support the students’ mastery that is grammar. It plays important roles to control students in using sentences or phrases. Their mastery in English grammar will make their sentences comprehensible and acceptable. The students are able to fit the words in sentences with others. In syntactical construction the students have to know the appropriate form suits with meaning and context. The students understand that learning English needs to understand the rules of grammar. The grammar is integral part of learner’s knowledge. It is related with other subject. Grammar is a body of empirical rules which explain and regulate the structure of English sentences. Structure serves as a guide for students in building English sentences correctly (Mahani and Siswantoro, 1987: 53). The systematical rules of English grammar have become integral part of the students’ knowledge. It will enhance them to provide English sentences that are grammatically acceptable and therefore comprehensible. Some rules are extremely complex, including question sentences. It is one of the subject matter that the students learn in school. There are three kinds of question sentences of English; they are yes-no question, interrogative words, and tag questions (Nuryanto, 1986: 118-123). Seeing the kinds of question sentences above, it is understood that most of students find the difficulties in mastery of building and construction question sentences. It can be seen in the phenomenon such as: “Where we eat?” It should be: “Where do we eat?”, or they may write “Who book own?” It should be: “Whose is it?” Based on their English proficiency level, the students have learned about question sentences from junior up to senior high school. The students find many problems in building question sentence. Here the writer wants to elaborate the difficulties faced by the students in building questions and the sources of difficulties in building sentences.
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Interlanguage of Second and Foreign Language Learners The term interlanguage (IL) was introduced by the American linguist Larry Selinker to refer to the linguistic system evidenced when an adult second language learner attempts to express meanings in the language being learned. The interlanguage is viewed as a separate linguistic system, clearly different from both the learner’s ‘native language’ (NL) and the ‘target language’ (TL) being learned, but linked to both NL and TL by interlingual identifications in the perception of the learner. A central characteristic of any interlanguage is that it fossilizes – that is, it ceases to develop at some point short of full identity with the target language. Thus, the adult second-language learner never achieves a level of facility in the use of the target comparable to that achievable by any child acquiring the target as a native language. There is thus a crucial and central psycholinguistic difference between child NL acquisition and adult second language (L2) acquisition: children always succeed in completely acquiring their native language, but adults only very rarely succeed in completely acquiring a second language. The central object of interlanguage research is to explain this difference – essentially, to describe and explain the development of interlanguages and also to explain the ultimate failure of interlanguages to reach a state of identity with the target language (Tarone, 2006: 747). According to Richards (1992: 186), interlanguage is the type of language produced by second and foreign language learners who are in the process of learning a language. In language learning, learner’s errors are caused by several different processes. These include: (1) borrowing patterns from the mother tongue; (2) extending patterns from the target language; and (3) expressing meanings using the words and grammar which are already known. Foreign Language Learner Difficulties In learning foreign language, learner will encounter some problems in mastering the rule of language. They often produce erroneous utterances whether in their speech or their writing. Exactly those problems are caused of differences between the rule of the mother tongue and the foreign language. So, this matter makes difficulties to them in learning the target language. One
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of the difficult terms related with this research is building question sentences. There are two sources of difficulties in building question sentences namely inter lingual transfer and intra lingual transfer. Inter lingual transfer is caused by the interference of the learners’ mother tongue. Interference from the mother tongue is clearly a major source of difficulties in second language learning. In consequence, a lot of mistake in studying foreign language is caused by mother tongue. While intralingual is the negative transfer of item within the target language. Ricard states the intra lingual errors consist of four categories, namely (1) over generation, (2) ignorance, (3) incomplete application of the rules, and (4) semantic error (Richards, 1976: 35). Fourth of this big enough matter is influence in studying foreign language. In consequence, studying foreign language is very important to be emphasized on this matter. English Question Sentence Question can be divided into three major classes according to the types of answer that expect (Qirk, 1973: 191), they are yes-no question (that expect only affirmation or rejection), W-H question (that expect a reply supplying an item of information), and tag question (that invite the listener to respond the question). 1. Yes-no question
These are the simple questions elicit the answer yes or no only (Frank, 1972: 88). Usually all of these questions begin with an auxiliary or a single form of be that has been reversed with the subject.
2. Tag question
These are also yes-no question, but the special form into which they are put, shows of these two answers is actually expected. If the statement part of the question is positive, the question part is negative. If the statement part is negative, the question part is positive.
3. W-H question
These are questions that elicit specific information of a person, place, time, etc. As in negation, the verb in each of these questions is handled differently depending on whether the verb is or is not accompanied by an auxiliary in the declarative sentences. W-H questions are formed with the aid of the following interrogative words (question words),
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who for persons, whom for object, whose for possessive, which for things or subject or object (Thomson and Martinet, 1986: 71). Some experts also mention W-H question as interrogative word question, as Frank stated (1972: 88).
The Rules of Building Question Yes-no Question The pattern of an interrogative sentences as follows: auxiliary + subject adverb + verb + C / Adjunct + modal.
Verbal Pattern
Examples:
1) Does your friend study hard?
Yes, he does. / No, he doesn’t.
2) Shall she give us the book?
Non-verbal Pattern
Examples: 1) Are the nurses always busy?
Yes, she shall. / No, she shan’t.
Yes, they are. / No, they aren’t.
2) Is one of the students sick?
Yes, he is. / No, he isn’t.
For the verbal pattern, there must be an agreement between subject and auxiliary used. When the subject is singular, it uses auxiliary does and verb with s is omitted. For instance, there is a statement “She runs alone every morning.”, its interrogative sentence will be “Does she run alone every morning?”. The do auxiliary is accompanied with the simple present which follows its verb with s. For example, there is a statement “I have much money.”. In interrogative sentence form will be “Do you have much money?” Then, modal auxiliary generally has no s suffix for third person and no infinitive there is used for singular and plural subject. For example the statement “They can climb the mountain carefully.”. It will be “Can they climb the mountain carefully?” In addition to personal pronoun, the expletives there and it may also appear in a short answer to yes-no question.
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Is there my father?
Yes, there is.
In negative yes-no question, not is contracted with the auxiliary that starts the question. In formal usage, not is placed in adverbial position right after the reversed auxiliary and subject.
Isn’t Sari reading?
Didn’t Sari read newspaper?
Is Sari not reading?
Did Sari not read newspaper?
In highly informal conversation, the auxiliary and the subject of a yesno question are frequently omitted.
Get lunch?
for
Do you get lunch?
Thinking serious problem?
for
Are you thinking serious problem?
Tag Question The tag question consists of operator plus pronoun, without a negative partite, if the super ordinate clause is positive, the tag is negative, and vice versa (Frank, 1972: 88-91). For example, “He likes his job, doesn’t he?”, the meaning of this sentence, like its form, involve a statement and question, each of them asserts something then invites the listeners response to it. Azar said that a tag question added at the end of a sentence (1993: 16). Speaker uses tag question chiefly to make sure their information is correct or seek agreement. Tag question may be spoken: -
With a rising intonation if the speaker as truly speaking to ascertain information, idea, believe, is correct. Example: Ann is in apartment, doesn’t she?
-
With a falling intonation if the speaker is expressing an idea which is almost certain listener will agree. Example: It’s nice day today, isn’t it?
Tag question expects agreement with the statement (Frank, 1972: 89). It’s containing the regular question auxiliary plus the personal pronoun that stand the subject. For example, “It’s not raining, is it? No, it isn’t.” Krohn writes his pattern (1984: 21) as follow:
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Table 1. Non Verbal Tag Question Statement
Negative Tag
There are birds,
aren’t there?
They are clever,
aren’t they?
Tuti is diligent,
isn’t she? Table 2.
Non Verbal Tag Question (negative statement) Negative Statement
Affirmative Tag
You aren’t sick,
are you?
It is not your book,
is it?
Hari is not in the home,
is he? Table 3.
Verbal Tag Question Statement
Negative Tag
He went to school,
didn’t he?
She runs alone,
doesn’t she?
We write a letter,
don’t we? Table 4.
Verbal Tag Question (negative statement) Negative Statement
Affirmative Tag
Annie didn’t read well,
did she?
Toni doesn’t go to school,
does he?
They don’t bring my book,
do they?
Interrogative Word Question Interrogative word question is question begin with either interrogative adverb (why, when, where, how) or pronoun (who, whom, what, which) (Frank,
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1972: 91). This type of question begins with a question word (such as who, what, when, or where), the rest of word order pattern is auxiliary is placed before the subject (Krohn, 1984: 67). Below is the usage spread: v Who substitutes for a noun phrase which refers to a person. v Who substitutes for a noun phrase which refers to thing. v When substitutes for an adverbial which refers to time. v When substitutes for an adverbial which refers to place. v Why substitutes for part of the predicate phrase. v The question words as substitutes for the subject.
(Note: Who in this pattern is informal standard English. It is used in conversation also in notes or letters to friends and relatives. Whom is formal standard English. It is used in speech and formal writing, such as papers which students write in college.)
Nuryanto notes that the question word question may function as the interrogative pronoun (1986: 21). The interrogative adverbs consist of when (adverb of time), where (adverb of time), how (adverb of manner) may be combined with preposition. For instance, the interrogative pronoun of who, what, whom, and whose are normally used for person. What is used for things, which is used for thing and person when a choice involved. The Use of Word Questions Azar gives some explanations about the use of word question (1981: 1-3) as in the table below: Table 5. Kinds of Word Question and its Function Word Question
Function
Example
When
It is used to ask question about time.
When will you come?
Where
It is used to ask question about place.
Where I get ticket for the show?
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Why
It is used to ask question about reason.
Why do you go?
How
It is generally ask about manner, How does he drive? but has many idiomatic uses. It is used with many and much.
How much money does it cost?
It also used with adjective and adverb.
How old are you? How fast were you driving?
How long asks about length of time.
How long have you been in this city?
How often asks about frequency.
How often do you write in home?
How far asks about distance.
How far is to Miami from here?
Who
It is used ask the subject of a question.
Who wants to come with me?
Whom
It is used ask the object of a verb Whom did you see? or preposition.
Whose
It is used ask the question about possession.
Whose book did you borrow?
What
It is used at the subject of a question. It refers to things.
What made you are angry?
It is also used as an object.
What do you need?
It sometimes accompanied a noun.
What classes are you talking?
The Interrogative Sentence with Auxiliaries There are three types of auxiliaries, each of them serve different purpose: Tense Auxiliary It consist of be, have, will, and shall. The tense auxiliaries perform a structural function only. Be occur with the –ing present participle in the progressive forms on the tenses and with –ed in the passive tenses. Have is used for the perfect tense. Will and shall are used for the future tense.
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Do Auxiliary The do auxiliary is accompanied with the simple form of the verb (infinitive without to). It is used only in simple present tense (do or does offer) and simple past tense (did offer). It provides an auxiliary less verbs to enable then to function in the following grammatical patterns. a. Question
Do you like a new hat?
b. Negative statement
I don’t like your new hat.
c. Abridgment-omission or substation
I don’t like your coffee and neither does my wife.
d. Emphasis
My teacher thinks I didn’t study for my test, but I did study.
e. Entreaty
Do come to the party tonight.
Modal Auxiliary Frank said that modal auxiliaries are added to the verb as special semantic component such as ability, obligation, and possibility (1981: 94). Some of them express the same kinds of semantic coloring of verbs in the subjective mood. In general, they have no –s suffix for third person and no infinitive of participle form. They have only two formal tenses, the present and the past, which are used with the simple form of the lexical verb. Modal auxiliary does not change their form for person or number, that is, there is ni –s form for the third person singular. The modal position in the sentence is after the subject and before the rest of the sentence (Krohn, 1974: 109). Research Methodology The data of the research was taken from the students’ sentences about yesno questions, W-H questions, and tag questions which were made by the students in building question sentences through translation and complete the sentence according to each type of question. Their sentence was done through
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examination in the classroom of 40 second year students of MA As Soorkaty Salatiga along the research. The research was conducted on 1-12 June 2004 in the effective learning time from 07.00 a.m. to 01.00 p.m. The sources of data were taken based on the result of the test. The research was conducted by quantitative and qualitative study respectively. A quantitative was used to calculate the number of errors of each kind of sentences. Than qualitative one was used to analyze the source of difficulties and its cause of errors. In this research, the writer used a test as the instrument in collecting the data. By giving the test, she wanted to know the difficulties that faced by the students in building question sentences construction. The total number of test were 20 items, consist of 5 yes-no questions, 5 W-H questions, and 10 tag questions. The test was done by the students in a written essay form in the piece of paper prepared. To make easier in classification of the test, the writer classified the data based on the kinds of English questions. She wrote and calculated the total number of errors of each kind of question sentences. Then, she tried to conclude the difficulties in building question sentences construction which are related to the question sentences element. At last, the writer analyzed the source of difficulties based on the final test result which were presented in percentage formula: P=
x 100 %
P = Percentage
F = Number of individual
N = Frequency (Anas, 1994: 40)
Discussion and Finding Based on the analysis, the writer found that the students mostly done the errors on translating the meaning from native language to target language. They were remain used the words and grammar from the mother tongue. In the term of interlanguage, it was included in the third type of error that was expressing meaning using the words and grammar which are already known. The writer separated the difficult points into three points of description result, they were:
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The Difficulties in Building Yes-no Question Sentence In this type of question, the learners built yes-no question through translation. Based on the data involved, it can be analyzed that they have difficulties in building yes-no question through translation from Indonesia into English sentence, namely (1) apakah / what and (2) choosing to be. Apakah / what In translation the word “apakah”, the students have made error repeatedly. It is influenced by their mother tongue to translate “apakah”. The learners tend to make addition, it is an error which characterized by the presence of an item which is not appear in a well form utterance. They tend to translate “apakah” in yes-no question sentences with the word “what”. Such kind of error is categorized include into addition because the students rise an item which not appear in correct form of English contraction. Examples :
1) Apakah mereka siswa MA As Soorkaty Salatiga?
2) Apakah kamu kemarin makan di restoran itu?
The students’ translation :
a) What are they student MA As Soorkaty Salatiga?
b) What are you eat in restaurant yesterday?
Seeing the students’ translation above, the learners are very poor in translation mastery from Indonesia into English sentence. It is not similar to translate from Indonesia into English. The students prefer to use word “what” to translate Indonesian word of “apakah”. It is not appear in well form utterance. The students should put auxiliary verb for the target language “apakah”, so the correct forms are as follow:
1) Are they students MA As Soorkaty Salatiga?
2) Did you eat in restaurant yesterday?
Choosing to be The second difficulties in building yes-no question sentences through tran slation is choosing to be on auxiliary verb with the subject used in the sentences. 110
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The learners are still obvious in using was, were, is, are, do, does, etc. Examples :
1) Apakah mereka siswa MA As Soorkaty Salatiga?
2) Apakah dia seorang perawat?
The students’ translation :
a) What are they student MA As Soorkaty Salatiga?
b) What does she a nurse?
The learners do not pay attention in using to be from the example (a) the students made errors in choosing to be which must be related with the time or action happened. They should not put “are” for the example above, because the adverb of time which is used is past tense. In the example (b) the students also made error in choosing to be. They should not put “does” in the sentence, because the students above are not verbal pattern. They should put to be according to the subject used, so the correct sentence are:
1) Are they students MA As Soorkaty Salatiga?
2) Is she a nurse? Table 6.
The Result of Yes-no Question Translation from Indonesia to English
No. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Test Item Apakah dia seorang perawat? Apakah kita datang ke kantor kemarin? Apakah kamu kemarin makan di restoran itu? Apakah mereka siswa MA As Soorkaty Salatiga? Apakah kita akan belajar bersama di rumahku besok?
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The Sum and The Sum and Percentage of Percentage of Correct Answer Wrong Answer
15 10 12 17
37,5 % 25 % 30 % 42,5 %
25 30 28 23
62,5 % 75 % 70 % 57,5 %
11
27,5 %
29
72,5 %
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The Difficulties in Building W-H Question Sentence In this type of question, the learners built W-H question through translation. Based on the data involved, it can be analyzed that they have difficulties in building W-H question through translation from Indonesia into English sentence, namely (1) choosing word question and (2) choosing to be. Choosing word question The learners of MA As Soorkaty Salatiga are still bad to translate from Indonesia into English. In this type of question, the word questions which are used should suit and relate with an adverb of time and place. There are some words question in English such as who, whose, whom, where, when, etc. each of them has function according to the right person. It is not correct to use “who belong” to transfer the meaning of “milik siapa”. Examples :
1) Milik siapa buku ini?
2) Milik siapa buku-buku di sana?
The students’ translation :
a) Who belong book is this?
b) Who belong books is there?
The students have mistakes in using the word question “whose”. Many students use “who belong” to translate Indonesian words “milik siapa”. It is influenced by their mother tongue to transfer from L-1 to L-2. They think to everything in L-1“milik siapa” consist of two words, then they translate it word by word “who belong”. The students tend to presence the items which are not appear in correct pattern, so the correct form will be:
1) Whose book is this?
2) Whose books are there?
Choosing to be The second difficulties in building question sentences through translation is refer to choosing to be. Besides the learners have difficulties to use “who”, they also make an error in choosing to be. 112
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Example :
Milik siapa buku-buku di sana?
The students’ translation :
Who belong books is there?
The learners’ translation is still far from perfect. The learners should not put “is” in the form of plural noun. Such kind of error is made because they have not paying attention with “-s” added at the end of the word “books”. They should put “are” for its to be, so the correct sentence will be:
Whose books are there? Table 7. The Result of W-H Question Translation from Indonesia to English
No.
Test Item
The Sum and The Sum and Percentage Percentage of Correct of Wrong Answer Answer
1.
Apa yang dia makan?
14
35 %
26
65 %
2.
Milik siapa buku ini?
8
20 %
32
80 %
3.
Milik siapa buku-buku di sana?
14
35 %
36
65 %
4.
Kapan kamu mengerjakan PR ini?
20
50 %
20
50 %
5.
Berapa jam kamu belajar dalam sehari? 18
45 %
22
55 %
The Difficulties in Completing Tag Question Sentence In this type of question, the learners completed the tag question follow the sentences. Based on the data involved, it can be analyzed that they have difficulties in completing the tag question follow the sentences, namely choosing auxiliary verb. Choosing auxiliary verb The learners are still obvious and confuse in using suitable auxiliary verb based time form in the sentences, such as is, am, are, do, does (present), was, were, did (past), will, shall, should, etc. (future), etc.
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Examples :
1) You like coffee, . . . ?
2) They arrived yesterday, . . . ?
The student’s translation :
a) You like coffee, doesn’t you?
b) They arrived yesterday, don’t they?
The learners do not pay attention in using auxiliary verb. From the example (a) the students made error in choosing auxiliary verb which must be related with the time or action happened. They should not put “does” for the example above though the adverb of time indicates of present tense form. They did not consider that the subject is “you”. It is a plural subject, so the proper auxiliary is “do”. In the example (b) the students also made error in choosing auxiliary verb. They should not put “do” in the negative tag, because the adverb of time which is used is in past tense, so the correct sentences are:
1) You like coffee, don’t you?
2) They arrived yesterday, didn’t they? Table 8. The Result of Completing Tag Question Based on Sentences
No.
Test Item
The Sum and The Sum and Percentage Percentage of Correct of Wrong Answer Answer
1.
They arrived yesterday, . . . ?
20
50 %
2.
You have heard about that, . . . ?
25
62,5 % 15
37,5 %
3.
You like coffee, . . . ?
18
45 %
22
55 %
4.
I may speak to him, . . . ?
16
40 %
24
60 %
5.
You’d rather I didn’t say anything, . . . ? 17
42,5 % 23
57,5 %
6.
He didn’t have to speak to me, . . . ?
25
62,5 % 15
37,5 %
7.
I have to buy some matches, . . . ?
14
35 %
65 %
8.
He was not fall down, . . . ?
27
67,5 % 13
32,5 %
9.
You will come, . . . ?
21
52,5 % 19
47,5 %
10.
You would like the window to open, . . . ? 20
50 %
50 %
114
20
26
20
50 %
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From the finding result above, it can be conclude that there are two sources of difficulties in building question sentences namely interlingual transfer and intralingual transfer. Interlingual Transfer The learners have made interlingual error because of the mother tongue interference. They usually transfer the system of their mother tongue into foreign language in placing what for the each want “apakah”. Examples : 1. False
: What is she a nurse?
: Is she a nurse?
True
2. False
: What we will study together in my house?
: Do we will study together in my house tomorrow?
True
From the examples, these are transfer from L-1 (first language / mother tongue). The errors are such kind of interlingual transfer, because the students admit one of the element of the correct sentences in building yes-no question. Intralingual Transfer It is the negative transfer of items within the tongue language or put another way the incorrect generalization of the rule within the target language. It has been found that the early stages of language are characterized by a predominance of interlingual transfer is manifested. Negative intralingual transfer can be illustrated in utterance. Examples : 1. False
: Who belong books is this?
: Whose book is this?
True
2. False
: When you do homework?
: When do you do this homework?
True
According to Dulay, the constructive diction where the structure in the first language would be product (1982: 97). It is influenced by the first language habit. In other word, the students’ difficulty is by an interference of the learners that are used to think himself by using their mother tongue. The sentences above are errors in the use of grammar because the students still cannot re cognized the subject and put “are” for its to be.
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Conclusion Based on the analysis, the result shows some conclusions. Firstly, the researcher finds the types of difficulties problems are faced by the students in building question mastery, such as: (1) building yes-no question sentences in translation the word “apakah”, that is related with the use of to be. (2) Building interrogative word question sentences in translation the words “apa”, “kapan”, “milik siapa”, etc. That are related with the use of “what”, “when”, “whose”, etc. (3) Completing the tag question sentences with the proper auxiliary based on tense of the sentences. Those are related with choosing suitable to be or auxiliary. The most difficulties in building question sentences are especially in yes-no question form by using the word “apakah”. The source of difficulties which have been analyzed are mostly caused by inter lingual and intra lingual transfer. The errors of inter lingual transfer is affected by the students’ mother tongue interference. It is a major source of difficulty in second language learning. While the errors of intra lingual transfer is caused by the students’ lack of knowledge about grammar. In the term of interlanguage, the students’ errors are mostly included in expressing meaning by the words and grammar of their mother tongue. Reference Azar, Betty Schrampfer. 1993. Understanding and Using English Grammar. Prentice Hall Regent: New Jersey. Dulay. 1982. Language Two. Oxford University Press. New York. Frank, Marcella. 1972. Modern English: a Practical Reference Guide. Englewood Cliffs: New Jersey. _____________ . 1981. Modern English: a Practical Reference Guide. Englewood Cliffs: New Jersey. Krohn, Robert. 1984. English Sentence Structure. The University of Michigan Press: New York. Mahani, Setyo and Siswantoro. 1987. Pengkajian Kurikulum SMA. Universitas Sebeles Maret: Surakarta. Murphy, Raymond. 1985. English Grammar in Usage. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 116
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Nuryanto. 1986. Essential of English Sentence Structure. Yayasan IKK: Yogyakarta. Qirk. 1973. A University Grammar of English. Longman: England. Richards, Jack C. 1976. Error Analysis. Columbia University Press: New York. _______ et.al. 1992. Dictionary of Language Teaching & Applied Linguistics. Longman: UK. Sudjiono, Anas. 1994. Pengantar Statistik Pendidikan. Raja Grafindo: Jakarta. Tarone, E. 2006. Interlanguage. University of Cartenbury: New Zealand. Thomson, A. J. and A.V. Martinet. 1986. A Practical English Grammar. Oxford University Press: Hongkong.
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SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
REGISTER is a forum of discussion that focuses on language (linguistics and literature) as well as language teaching studies. It aims at enhancing critical studies on the various actual phenomena from different perspectives. The editors invite articles from teachers, linguists, and those who concerns with language, literature and language teaching under the following submission guidelines: 1. The editors will be pleased to publish research and non research original articles that deal with linguistics, literature, and language teaching. 2. The article has not been published or is not being considered for publication elsewhere (either in the actual or modified form) 3. Full-length articles should not exceed 11000 words and should not be less than 2000 words typed in A4 paper of 1.5 spaces, Times New Roman 12, in MS Word. 4. The title should be concise and informative 5. Write the author’s name, affiliation, affiliation address and the e-mail address of the author below the title. 6. The abstract should be concise, informative, and in 100 – 350 words. 7. Key words should have 3 - 5 words or phrases 8. References should be written as the example:
Wilis, J. 1996. A Framework for Task- Based Learning. Longman: London Carr, Kathryn S. 1990. How Can We Teach Critical Thinking? Retrieved from http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9218/critical.htm
Stadler, Stefanie. 2011. Intercultural communication and East Asian politeness. In Kadar, Daniel Z. and Sara Mills (eds). Politeness in East Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. Research articles comprise: (a) title; (b) writer’s name (without any title); (c) abstract; (d) key words; (e) introduction including theoretical review and / or research purposes; (f) research methodology; (g) discussion; (h) conclusion; (i) reference. 10.
Non research articles comprise: (a) title; (b) writer’s name (without any
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title); (c) abstract; (d) key words; (e) introduction; (f) discussion; (g) conclusion; (h) reference. 11. Submit a soft copy of the article to the editors or send it via e-mail. REGISTER published by English Department of Educational Faculty, State Islamic Studies Institute (STAIN) of Salatiga, Jl. Tentara Pelajar No. 2 Salatiga, Central Java, Indonesia, 57012. Website: journalregister.stainsalatiga.ac.id e-mail:
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