The Implementation of Teaching English in a Conversation Class at SMA Negeri 8 Malang
| Main Author: | Maya Rizki Fauzia; English Department, Faculty of Letters, State University of Malang. Advisor: (I) Dr. Sri Rachmajanti, Dip. TESL., M.Pd., (II) Dra. S. Nurul Muthmainnah, M.A. |
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| Format: | PeerReviewed application/msword |
| Bahasa: | eng |
| Terbitan: |
, 2009
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: |
http://karya-ilmiah.um.ac.id/index.php/sastra-inggris/article/view/582 |
Daftar Isi:
- English is the language used for global range. English is used in numbers of aspects such as technology, news broadcasting and education. Yet, mastering English will be useless without the mastery of speaking. Someone’s success in learning a target language is fully determined by his or her ability to use the target language in a real life communication. Yet, in our country, Indonesia, there is a very limited chance for the students to practice their speaking abilities. As the result, they find it difficult to improve their speaking abilities. Therefore, some schools, including SMA Negeri 8 Malang, have established a conversation class as the media for the students to practice their speaking skills. This study was conducted to describe the implementation of teaching English in the conversation class at SMA Negeri 8 Malang. There were six variables included in this study, namely the kinds of classroom activities conducted in the conversation class, the kinds of roles implemented by the English teacher, the kinds of materials used in the conversation class, the kinds of media used in the class, the description of the students’ speaking problems, and their solutions to overcome the problems. The setting of this study was Grade XI majoring in IPA I with thirty-seven students in that class as the samples for this study. This study employed a descriptive-qualitative design. Field notes, the headmaster and the English teacher’s interview guides and the students’ questionnaires were the instruments used to collect the data needed. By employing all of the instruments, the relevant data were collected. The data are then classified by using the concept of coding categories into six variables as mentioned above. The findings of this study were as follows. The first, story telling, whispering games, story completion, role-play and watching movie were the classroom activities conducted in the conversation class. The second finding, the teacher acted as knowledge transmitter, a manager for the classroom activities and the counselor for the students who faced speaking problems. The third was that the materials used in this conversation class were the students’ funny experiences, Indonesian folk tales, argumentative texts about current social issues in Indonesia and a heroic movie. The fourth finding was that a whiteboard and a heroic movie were used as media in this class. The fifth finding is related to the students’ speaking problems. It was found out that 92% of the students face speaking problems. Their problems varied from linguistic problems up to psychological problems. It revealed that 86.5% of the students had vocabulary problems, 78.3% of them had grammar problems while 70.2 percent of the students faced pronunciation problems. 46% of the students stated that they were unable to understand other’s utterances in English. As an addition, 59.5% of the students iifelt shy to speak English and 32.4% of them were not motivated to speak English. The last finding showed the students’ efforts to overcome their speaking problems. The strategies used by the students to deal with their speaking problems were paraphrasing, approximation, the use of gestures, asking help from their classmates and their English teacher, adjusting the messages, and the use of native language. Based on the result of the study, it is recommended that the English teacher be more careful in selecting the kinds of classroom activities for the class. They should provide the opportunities for the students to practice their speaking abilities. Next, the teacher should also set up a fixed syllabus along with the kinds of classroom activities, materials, media and suitable scoring rubrics. As an addition, it is expected that he gives feedback for the students concerning to their performances. To SMA Negeri 8 Malang, it is better if the school establishes other programmes to motivate the students in improving their speaking abilities, for example English day or English competitions. The last suggestion is given to other researchers. It is expected for them to conduct other studies to investigate other elements in the conversation class apart from the six elements above. Another alternative is to take one of the six elements above and conduct an in-depth investigation about it.