The Sun Shine

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This post is written as the TEFL lecture assignment of the teacher training and education program, Slamet Riyadi University.

Due to the teaching trainee program of my university, I’ve been placed as a trainee teacher in MAN I Surakarta. Although the program was only for three months, it has given me adequate experiences of teaching English as foreign language to teenager.

MAN stands for Madrasah Aliyah Negeri . It is an Islamic state school which is equal to Senior High School. MAN 1 Surakarta is located on Jl. Sumpah Pemuda No. 25, Kadipiro, Banjarsari district, Surakarta city, zip code: 57136, Phone & Fax: (0271)852066. This school has a big concern on Islamic subjects. However, English is also taught as a compulsory subject.

The school has the same programs with other senior high schools, such as science, social and language programs. Moreover, MAN I Surakarta also has a boarding school program which is considered as the program that accommodates certain excellent students. Luckily, I’ve been asked to teach the students of the boarding school program during my teaching trainee program.

Generally, the students of boarding school program are very smart and clever. They do not only study in a regular class, but they also have to study in their boarding school. Moreover, there is a rule of the boarding school that asks students to optionally speak whether using Arabic or English. Since they are obligated to avoid the use of mother tongue in their daily conversation, they may acquire their foreign language better than any other regular students in this school.

As a trainee teacher, I have a job to succeed the real English teacher for about three months. I’ve been asked to teach the basic competence of Senior High school students, such as text genres and certain expressions. During my teaching trainee, I used three phases teaching technique (PPP) which is combined with the communicative approach.

According to Harmer (2001: 80), the PPP are presentation, practice and production. Through this way, the teaching learning can be teacher centered. During the teaching trainee program, I try to collaborate the PPP with communicative approach which emphasizing on the students’ activity to avoid teacher centered language learning. The communicative approach stressed significance of the language functions rather than focusing on grammar and vocabulary Harmer (2001: 84). Thus, it can support the teaching process of the basic competences of the students, the transactional and interpersonal skill.

During the presentation, there is an important part called brainstorming. The brainstorming is the effort of directing students mind into the topic which is going to discuss. I usually give many interactive questions which are related to the topic after greeting and checking the students’ attendance. Then, the teaching process is continued to the presentation phase. During the presentation, teacher tries to model students about the topic discussed. For example, I try to describe one of the student’s appearances when I teach the descriptive text. Through this way, I can ask the other students to give opinion about the students who is being described. The students seem to be active and they know how to describe their friend based on the physical appearances.

The next is the practice skill. The teacher puts the big emphasize to stimulate students to be active in learning, by giving some pair-work or group work exercises. It is very important because interaction between language learners can motivate each other to use their target language. Moreover, Byrne (1992: 76) states that it is recommended for a big class with many students should be divided into pairs/groups to provide students with an environment within which they can communicate easily and freely, and within they can work independently with less interfere from teacher. For more interesting teaching learning, we can also use games to practice the skill.

The last phase is the production skill. It is a chance in which students can practice their skill individually. I like to use homework as the production of each student. Homework can motivate students to re-study the previous lesson. As a closing, I also make a review. I asked several students about some important notes of the current lesson. I make a conclusion and give a little preview of the next lesson.

References:

Byrne, Donn.1997. Teaching Oral English. Kuala Lumpur: Longman.

Harmer, Jeremy. 2001 .The Practice of English Language Teaching Third
Edition. London: Longman

The Advantages of Internet for Children

2010-05-10T13:54:00.001+07:00

In the former life, people have to subscribe a media, such as newspaper, tabloid, and magazine to get the most update information around the world. During the big advance of technology, people are able to access knowledge and information freely and easily through a media that called internet.

Through the internet, people not only get the information but they are also able to do their daily activities using such helpful thing. Nowadays, Internet is not only a secondary need, for some people internet becomes the main need of their daily life. Unfortunately, not all of the internet users are adult.

Children or teenagers now are able to browse the internet freely, whether in their home or in the internet cafe. Children are fast learner. They can even master the internet literary only by watching their friend or adult browsing the internet.

There are some advantages of internet for the children:

Positive effect on physical development of the children

People may not see the impact of internet to the physical development. However, internet usages give a positive impact to the physical development. According to the knowledge of muscular development and motor control skill, the use of internet that demands the keyboard and mouse usage will naturally enhance the child’s eye-hand coordination and motor skill.

Positive effect on cognitive development

Children who use the Internet show gains in cognitive abilities such as memory, logical problem solving, critical thinking, concentration, abstraction and comprehension. The Internet exposes children to information to improve the quality of learning that they can transform into knowledge. Through the use of the Internet, children’s language and literacy development is often promoted, allowing for greater gains in verbal and nonverbal skills.

Positive effect on social development

Internet cannot and should not replace human interaction or relationships, nor take the place of activities such as sharing verbal conversations with our children or reading together. However, internet allows children to socialize with other children through the use of email, chat rooms, and instant messaging, increasing the development of communication and social skills.

The importance of group classroom activities

2010-04-16T19:09:00.000+07:00

English class is used to be as communicative as possible because teaching English is not only about understanding the grammar but also how to apply it in the real world. In some cases, students like to work independently. They tend to be more comfortable with their own opinion when doing the tasks or exercises.

Giving the assessment as the evaluation of the lesson is very important. Teachers should know their students ability and in which point students may find the learning problem. Teachers usually give many individual exercises to measure students’ understanding level of the lesson that they taught.

In Indonesia, TEFL teacher may usually use an extra-exercise book (non-textbook) intended for individual work. This book which is mostly known as LKS (students’ worksheet) is written based on the related textbook. This book doesn’t support interaction between students and teachers or students to students. It’s mere an exercises that mostly presents multiple choices as the main assessment.

Actually, the student-centered approach to improve learners' communicative competence has been adopted by some language teachers. Group work, one of the most important class activities for developing students' communicative ability, is gradually being applied to teach English as a foreign language (EFL).Group work is very useful for TEFL classroom. It helps the learners to involve into various interaction types and support a more conducive and cooperative class.

When students work in group, they seem to lose their pressure of the listening to full explanation of the teachers. Moreover, they can boost their communication experience and share their opinions to reach a final solution.It is a simple forum for students to solve a problem with their own perspective. Group work helps students to improve their cognitive and affective aspects.

Some tips to improve the confidence when teaching

2010-04-10T21:50:00.001+07:00

Azys Syaiful Anwar

Somehow, students are afraid of English as their main subject in a TEFL class. As a result, they tend to hate some English teachers that are supposed to be the ‘killer’ teachers with a ‘deadly weapon’ called English. This kind of case may be found in some of Indonesian school. For some, new teacher, just like me, it will lead to a confidence problem.

How if when teacher comes in and says hello to students, but no response at all? That will decrease the mood of teaching and mostly our confidence in teaching the students. Alright, to advance our self-assurance, I will divulge some suggestion to improve your confidence as a TEFL teacher in my lovely blog, The Sun Shine:

Study the basic teaching books

When teachers are convinced with their ability in teaching, then they may start to be more confidence to teach in front of the students. Besides, reading the basic teaching books will also advance teachers’ knowledge of how to teach. Therefore, they will have a sense of teaching that lead them be a better educator.

Prepare for a good appearance

The most important thing is preparing the tidiest clothes for the class. How you can be a confidence teacher if you wear a rumpled clothes which may also be moldy shirt. Moreover, teacher also needs to pay attention to the haircut, if you think that it’s already mess, then you can prepare a comb on your pocket.

Make some observation

Yeah, it will be quite important to note that a teacher needs to know many things about the students, for example: students’ basic ability of English and how they can study comfortably. Besides, teachers may conduct peer observation. This is intended to analyze some perspective of teaching. As a result, teachers can get the evaluation of their ways teaching the students, so they Do something step by stepteaching will be easier if you make a proper plan before teaching students. When, construct your syllabus you need to start your lesson in order. You can start from the basic skill, intermediate and advance level.

Writing activity

2010-04-09T09:55:00.001+07:00

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Writing is such a good activity to increase students mastery of English. Since writing demands a lot of aspects, such as vocabulary, grammatical form of sentences and also the ability of creating a paragraph, it really effective for student to enhance their ability especially their skill in grammar and vocabulary.

In Indonesia, teaching through genre of text is now being applied. However, there are some teachers that think teaching writing skill is very difficult and the students don’t have the ability of writing at all. The only thing that should be remembered is never underestimating your student ability.

Teachers actually can create a better learning atmosphere by creating some fun teaching and learning activities. It doesn’t always activity that makes students laugh, but it is more about how teachers attract students with the lesson. The key is keep students to be active. There are some activities to make an interactive writing class that can be explained below:

Writing game: ADD THE TEXT

This game is intended for groups’ discussion. First of all, teachers need to divide the class into some groups, and then choose a leader for each group. The game is very simple but will be helpful to enhance students’ ability. The rule is the first student or the leader is asked to write 3- 5 sentences with one specific topic given by teacher.

The next step, the leader gives the text to another student and asks him to read the text carefully and then write 3 – 5 sentence related to the topic. To make this activity run successfully, teacher should use a material that was discussed before. This activity can be an alternative way to make your students active and enjoy the lesson.

Write about the pictures

I have ever practiced this simple game. Teacher only needs to prepare a group of pictures (for example: animal pictures, or you can search the pictures on the text book) for the students. Teacher divides the class into some groups. Teachers ask the groups to make a simple description of each picture they like. Then, teacher asks the each representative of the group to read the description in the class. When the students read each of the description, the other students give response by telling what he describes. However, the group members that are being represented by their friend are not allowed to guess the description. The descriptions that are clear and get more response from their friends are better.

That’s all about some writing activities that teacher takes to encourage students learn more. If you have another ideas, you can write comments below. .

The use of definite article ‘The’

2010-03-31T01:57:00.003+07:00

The definite article is used before singular and plural nouns when the noun is specific or particular. ‘The’ signals that the noun is definite, that it refers to a particular member of a group.

For example: "The girl that wear a red shirt is my daughter.” In this case, we're talking about a specific girl, the girl that wear a red shirt.

Count and Non-count Nouns
You can use article 'The' or not use it with the non-count nouns. For example: He spilled the coke all over the floor". 'the coke' means some specific coke, it may be the coke you bought earlier that day; or "He spilled coke all over the floor". 'coke' written without the means any coke.

Geographical use of 'The'

Do not use the before: names of most countries/territories: Italy, Mexico, Bolivia; however, pay attention to some of this countries: the Netherlands, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, the United States
Names of cities, towns, or states: Seoul, Manitoba, Miami,Jakarta>
Names of streets: Washington Blvd., Main St., Pemuda St
Names of lakes and bays: Lake Tempe, Lake Toba, except with a group of lakes like the Great Lakes names of mountains: Mount Everest, Mount Fuji , Mount Merapi, except with ranges of mountains like the Rockies.
Names of continents : Asia, Europe, Africa, America, Australia.
Names of islands : Java Island, Sumatra Island, Bali Island, except with island chains like the Canary Islands

Do use the before:

Names of rivers, oceans and seas: the Nile, the Pacific
Points on the globe: the Equator, the North Pole geographical areas: the Middle East, the West deserts, forests, gulfs, and peninsulas: the Sahara, the Persian Gulf, the Black Forest, the Iberian Peninsula

Omission of Articles
Some common types of nouns that don't take an article are:

Names of languages and nationalities: Chinese, English, Spanish, Russian >
Names of sports: volleyball, hockey, baseball
Names of academic subjects: mathematics, biology, history, computer science

Obligation: Must vs. Have to

2010-03-29T09:11:00.002+07:00

Sometimes, speakers can use ‘must’ or ‘have to’ to mean the same thing that is to express necessity or obligation.

Example: I need to be at the terminal in one hour, so I must / have to go.

In the common usage, speakers use ‘must’ to tell the personal feelings, and ‘have to’ for expressing facts.Example:

• Blink 182 is going to have a concert here. I must see them!

• Students have to wear a uniform in the school.

We use must for the present or future, but not the past. We can use have to for all tenses. For negative statements and questions, we generally use do / does / did with have to.

Example:

CORRECT	INCORRECT
You don't have to go.	You have not to go.
Do you have to go there?	Have you to go there?
You didn’t have to call me.	You hadn’t to call me.
Why did you have to do that?	Why had you to do that?

Must not / mustn't and don't have to have different meanings. Must not / mustn't mean it is forbidden. Don't have to means it is not necessary.

Example:

• You mustn't cross the road here.
• You don't have to come to my house if you don't have time.

Plastic surgery

2010-03-29T04:17:00.001+07:00

Plastic surgery can be defined as a medical specialty related to the correction or restoration of form and function. While famous for aesthetic surgery, plastic surgery also includes many types of reconstructive surgery, hand surgery, microsurgery, and the treatment of burns.

The word "plastic" comes from the Greek ‘plastikos’ which means to mould or to shape. It doesn’t mean that plastic surgery using synthetic polymer called plastic.

Somehow, people are afraid of their appearance and tend to have less confidence. They may have more fat in the body, or some body shape that they don’t like. They may be considered of having plastic surgery. Los Angeles plastic surgery, for example, is a common spot of having surgery.

Women usually want the best for the appearance; they may use many kind of cosmetic to improve their beauty. However, can they enhance their body appearance? Yes, they can do it, for example Los Angeles breast augmentation. It’s kind of effort of having a better breast.

After the pregnancy or having older age, women may think that their body is much worse. They can have a special treatment that brings their beauty back. The mommy makeover can undertake for the best effort of improving women’s look, especially for married women.

Tips to Choose Better Glasses for Your Eyes

2010-03-24T01:24:00.000+07:00

Reading is the most effective way of acquiring new information. Besides, we can also get some other advantages of reading, such as obtaining motivation, entertainment and new thought. It will be very great if we have perfect eyes to read. People need a very clear eye when reading a text. How if people have trouble with their eyes? The perfect solution is looking for perfect eye glasses in The #1 online Rx glasses store.

Some people may force their eyes to work harder when they have extra job. If they do the activity continuously, their eyes may get some problems. As a result, they need the eyeglasses to assist their eyes to work better. People may go to the eye specialist and get a prescription. However, some of them may postponed their intention when find that the eyeglasses is much expensive that their expectation.

Eyeglasses in a common optical store may reach $ 100 or even more. How if you still have any other cost, your life cost, your son college cost, etc. Don’t you think if only there are cheaper eyeglasses, do you? But, I’ve just read the information that there is a cheap optical store. It is Zenni Optical. They do not only sell very cheap glasses, but also modern style of the Lowest Price Progressive Glasses.

Can you imagine, you can buy eyeglasses for only eight bucks? Yes, $8 and low cost for shipping (it’s just $ 4.95). Zenni also offers many stylish eyeglasses and that’s will be useful for your teenagers who afraid of using eyeglasses. So, what are you waiting for? You don’t need extra money to pay the perfect eyeglasses. Moreover, please read Eric’s Review of Zenni.

If you buy the eyeglasses from Zenni, not only you save your eye, but also save your economy from the crisis. Reading is very important. You need to focus to avoid the misunderstanding of the sentence. If yo’re interested to the glasses you can see more complete information at The #1 online Rx glasses store

TEFL Listening and Speaking Class Activity

2010-03-21T08:37:00.001+07:00

TEFL teachers may work harder to encourage the learners to speak or comprehending English sentences. Since the less chance of speaking, or hearing people in their community speaking English, they don’t have the habit of using English in their daily conversation. As a result, they, sometimes, feels hesitant in practicing their English mastery. As a solution, teachers can try to make a class which mainly focuses on the English speaking and listening skill to help students more communicative.

To teach listening and speaking skill, teachers can’t make simple activity involving the entire student. The activity must be planned well and it has to stimulate students to practice their English. For example, teachers can take ‘chain sentence game’ to teach their students. It’s a game that demands the students’ listening and speaking ability. Using this game, teachers can get the overview of the students’ ability in comprehending and pronouncing the words.

To run this game, teacher needs to divide the class into groups. The group is in a row to back. Teachers can adjust the number of group members depending on the entire class number. Teacher can make a grammar and vocabulary focus as the main topic. Then, teacher can write some sentences in a slip of paper. The slip paper is going to be distributed to each group, so teacher may write three to five sentences to each group (consider the time provided in the English lesson).

The next step is explaining the game’s rules. Teacher gives each student the slip papers to the group leader (first person of the group). Teacher has the leader read the sentence on the slip paper and then flipped it down. After that, the leader whispers what he just reads to the next group member and so do the rest of the group member. Finally, the last man of the group will say the sentence loudly. Teacher can give feedback whether they correct or not.

This is only a simple game for your student that can be practiced without spending much time on preparation. This is intends to force your students to speak and to comprehend English. Since foreign language seems hardly to learn, somehow, teachers need to ‘force’ students to study it. Teachers can provide some fun activity which is adjusted to the standard of achieved competence. Moreover, teachers can try to make teaching tools if they’re needed.

Wanhar Umar, A hero of Education

2010-03-16T11:17:00.002+07:00

If there is a school headmaster who only graduates from elementary school, it must be Wanhar Umar. He is a headmaster and also the only teacher for the students of SD Dusun III Langsatan. It is an elementary school located in Muaraenim District, Indonesia.

Wanhar had taught at the school since he was 14 years. He had taught his students for about 32 years. “This school has been established since 1971, and I started to teach when I graduated from elementary school in 1976” he said. The SD III Langsatan was belong to a private institution.

In 1985, Wanhar did not only taught, the six classes of the elementary school but also be the school headmaster that organizing the school administration. He is a noble teacher who only focused to the student’s education. He just thought the best for their students.

Since his big contribution to the children education, he achieved an award from an Indonesian TV show, Kick Andy. Wanhar obtained ‘Kick Andy Heroes 2009’ and got ten million rupiahs. After this event, the formal education of Langsatan Village reached the Muaraenim district government attention. The government was considering to change the elementary school status from the private to be a state school.

Expensive cost for ‘High Quality’ Education in Indonesia

2010-02-28T22:24:00.001+07:00

The only question in my mind now is how much money I should spend to continue to study in the university. The answer is million rupiahs. It isn’t affordable price for me who only earn less than amount that I should pay. In Indonesia, education is now being expensive and it seems growing to be a business. Although, I plan to study in a state university, I still have a challenge not only to graduate from the subjects, but also fulfill the administration requirement.

The only reason that leads this problem is the conversion of the university from the state property to be state corporation (BHMN). Formerly, government gives subsidy to pay the operation cost of the university, then through this conversion, government stops the subsidy and let each university regulating their own policy in acquiring operation fee. As a result, University increases the study cost and burden it to the students.

“…mencerdaskan kehidupan bangsa, dan melaksanakan ketertiban dunia…” 

In the opening of constitution of Indonesia at the 4th paragraph (as cited above), it is clearly said that one of Indonesia goal is to educate their citizen. How if education becoming expensive? Does it mean education is only provided for the rich? Indonesia is listed as one of the poor country in the world. How about them, should they stop achieving formal education?

Since the state corporation status applied to Indonesian universities, the chance for most of the poor students to learn in a state university (considered to be better than ‘cheaper cost private university’) is lower. Moreover, to study in a high quality private university is also as expensive as studying in a state university.

Government should remember education is the principal right of the citizen. I have ever heard that government allocated 20% of the State Expenditure. It’s not a little amount and hopefully it can be appropriately used to accommodate the Education.

National School Graduation Test as the only ‘Executor’ of Students’ graduation?

2010-02-26T00:48:00.003+07:00

Formal education in the school is quite important for many students. However, it becomes useless when the learning achievements have to be corrupted at last. That’s what hundreds or even thousands of students around Indonesia experienced. They didn’t pass the National Graduation test, the only test that drives their future. Their learning experience for three years in the junior or senior high must be assessed in about three days test.

Actually, the national graduation test will be held faster than the annually agenda. It usually runs on April, but government will hold this event on March, 2010. As a result, students get shorten preparation to face their test. Some of them are afraid of this test. If they don’t pass the standard grade of the test, they can be considered as fail in their learning process in the current level.

Case example, if a student, just call him Adi, doesn’t have enough score in one subjects or doesn’t pass the minimum average score, he is failed and cannot continue to the next level. If Adi is a junior high, he cannot continue his study to senior high using their learning achievement during his study in his school.

What a terrible problem. That’s make some of community submit a protest to the national graduation test. Some of them may parents who are not satisfied with the national graduation test. Their children who are always having a good learning achievement don’t pass in a subject. Then, they are sentenced to be failed students although they get maximum result for the other subject.

Government doesn’t improve the minimum requirement of the national graduation test passing score. According to National Ministry policy no. 75/2009 ruled about the national test for junior/senior high school, students have to get or pass the average score for all subjects. They have to get at least 5.50 point for all subjects. Besides, they also have to reach 4.00 or more for each subjects tested. If they get average score 5.50, but there is a 3.00 score on one of the learning subject. Then, they can be said as failed in the test.

Math isn't Monster

2010-02-25T23:42:00.000+07:00

“I don’t really like math, Mom”, “There is calculator or computer, It can help me to calculate all the data in simple way” These utterances may be said by your children or our college friend to ignore their ability in Math. Math is supposed as difficult subject which bring people to the desperation in learning it. Therefore, it is important to note that Math isn’t about calculating data in numbers; it’s all about how to solve a problem.

Through the Math problems, people are able to stimulate their brain in solving a problem. Some people think that it’s harder to learn math rather than another subject. They think that Math isn’t applicable in the real world. Some of my friend say, “just have a look at the shopkeeper, they don’t even use the E=MC² to count how much they should give change to the customer”. They don’t aware that Math is more important than just to seek the result. It is more useful to train our brain to break the entire problem rationally.

In the era of modern communication, learning Math isn’t a difficult thing to do. You can choose many courses provides by some educational institution. However, if you don’t have enough time in class learning . You can even bring Math lesson to your home by inviting an instructor to create a homeschooling. Besides, you can also learn using Homework help to assist you in learning the math problem.

Alternatively, you can try online learning using Free Algebra help. You have to make a registration to the awesome Algebra online tutor for only $99.99 for all subjects. It means that not only Math, you can also study more subject using this online learning assistant. If you still find many problem in solving the Fractions, you can try the demo first.

The Algebra help is a professional K 12 online learning peer that provides you a lot of beneficial feature of learning. The formula of solving the Math problem, for example, can be the best solution to kick your desperation in learning this subject. The only tips I have is you need to make learning as a habit. You mustn’t able to master a subject if you learned it only once in your lifetime. Practice make perfect, so what are you waiting for? Learning isn’t limited by the age. You’re never too old to learn friend.

Learning by Doing

2010-02-16T17:38:00.003+07:00

Learning is the process of acquiring new knowledge. People may actively search for the material by self or join some courses to get the skill. Learning also can be defined as the effort of developing ability, understanding and attitude to make a new or just change the habit. On the learning process, people may involved their brain and body combined to produce new ability.

Most of people like to passively obtain new knowledge by put theory as the first priority. Therefore, they can only know the theory without any proper skill to use it in the real world. For example: the language learner who are focused on the gramatical matter. They may great in writting formall essay. However, can he apply his language mastery to communicate to the nattive speaker? Do they pronounce the word well?

To master any skill, people really need to make what they learnt as a habit. People who are learning English have to speak English frequently and people who are learning computer have to practice their computer literary everyday to keep even improve their mastery. This term can be said as 'learning by doing'. It involves the activity of our brain and body, so it will enhance our ability gradually.

Applying learning by doing may be resulted in the direct feedback, whether it is success in the learning process or failing. Through this way, people may know some factors encouraging them to do mistakes. They can learn more variable factor in the real application rather than learning the theory.

Learning by doing is importan for us and it demands the learner to do what they learnt. This is a very powerful method to enhance our mastery of the skill. In the learning process, it involves the body and brain to work toghether, so it is considered to be more effective to change a habit.

Improve your English using Cafe English

2010-02-15T16:35:00.002+07:00

Learning English can be difficult for the foreign English learner. To master English, we are not only demanded to memorize the structure or the grammatical feature of the language but also how to apply it in the real world.

People certainly do not speak English in the formal situation. They also need it to communicate in the informal community, such as neighborhood, group of friends, etc. They have to master English speaking skill as well as their native languages.

There are many ways of mastering English skill. However, the most effective one is practicing English everyday. You can start to speak English as a habit. If you don't have any media to practice your English. You can ask your friends to make an English speaking group.But, if you think that it doesn't effective, you may try an English learning-aid software called CAFE ENGLISH.

This is a software focused on the speaking skill. It provides you 40 chapters which contains interesting topics. Besides, there are also listening, pronunciation and grammatical exercises. You don't need to worry of the English certain dialects. CAFE ENGLISH uses international English as the main language.

For more information just read this article:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Others/Home-Education/Cafe-English.shtml

The importance of Listening Comprehension

2010-02-15T16:12:00.002+07:00

Azys Syaiful Anwar

Some teachers say that the students’ level of listening comprehension is commonly lower than any other English skill they possess. Meanwhile, their ability to absorb the lesson of classroom discourse may in fact be higher. The major things happened in the ESL/EFL in Indonesia is that students rarely taught the listening skill properly. They don’t even get the basic of how to comprehend speech which may be said by the native speaker.

In many textbooks used in the school, teachers may find a listening stage in each unit of a course. However, most of them ignore it or skip it to the other English skills, such as writing, reading and speaking. The main reason of this problem is the less facility of the school to support the listening stage in the class. Somehow, teachers may pretend as the native speaker in teaching listening. They may read the text and interactively tries to communicate with the pupils. However, there are some bizarre dialects of English which is cannot be practiced or pronounced well by the teachers.

Teachers really need to model their students using the real conversation of the native speakers. It doesn’t matter if they use a cassettes or video to be analyzed. They can ask students to listen to a text or conversation and listen it scene by scene. Then, they have their students do the comprehending listening exercises. Richards (1990) divulge a clear description of how listening comprehension is acquired by native or non-native listeners. He refers as bottom-up and top-down processing.

Bottom-up processing refers to the decoding process, from the sound to the words, words to grammatical relationship and the final decoding is a meaning. To decode sounds students need to know the code consisting of how the sounds work and how they string together and how the code can change in different ways when it is strung together. Most students have never been taught how English changes when it's strung together in sentences. Otherwise, top-down processing refers to how we use our world knowledge to attribute meaning to language input.

General overview of Education in Indonesia

2010-02-13T15:26:00.007+07:00

Education is the most significant part of our life. I’ve ever heard an opinion mainly arguing that people must be born in a perfect condition as a human. Each of them has incredible intelligence which is more than another creature in this world. Then, to keep or even develop their basic intelligence, they need proper education. Education is the process of transferring knowledge and it’s not merely a direct learning to the natural environment but also the elaboration of knowledge through teaching and learning process in the formal class.

In Indonesia, all the things related to the educational field are managed by the Ministry of National Education of Indonesia (Departemen Pendidikan Nasional Republik Indonesia/Depdiknas), formerly the Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia (Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia/Depdikbud). Regarding to the government policy, all the Indonesian must take nine years of compulsory education (six years at elementary level and three in junior high school).

As what written in the law no. 20/ 2003, the Indonesian education consists of formal and non-formal forms. The formal form can be defined as a structural and gradual education system which comprises with elementary, secondary and tertiary education. Meanwhile, the non-formal education deals with all the forms of education (out of the formal field) which are structurally and gradually managed.
The more detail of education in Indonesia can be seen in the following table

Levels	Type	Students’ Age	Additional information
Primary	Early childhood	3 – 5 years	The first formal education which is aimed to prepare students to study to the higher level.
Primary	elementary	6 – 12 years	The compulsory level of education for Indonesian. It provides students six years learning period.
Secondary	Junior high school	12 – 15 years	The three years study which must be undertaken by Indonesian to complete the compulsory education.
Secondary	Senior High school	15 - 18	There are two options of choosing the next level of the junior high school. Students may study in a senior high school (SMA) or specified their study in Specified learning high school (SMK/ STM).
Tertiary	University	18+	Most of the students of senior high school take study to this level.

Easy to use dictionary, KAMUS 2.03

2010-02-13T15:17:00.002+07:00

Kamus 2.03 is an English – Indonesian/ Indonesian – English dictionaries which provides you not only the literal translation of a word, but also the phrase containing the word you’ve typed. This small size software must be useful in our daily English/Indonesian learning. We can find the words meaning in seconds. Besides, we also get the phrase suggestion in the same time.

Just have a look at Kamus 2.03 screen shoot below:

From the picture, you can see that it is easy and simple to use the dictionaries. You can typed the word you want to translate in the provided column, Just click ‘find’ and you’ll get some words and phrases related to the word you’ve typed.

The upper column (signed with red circle) shows you the word meaning and the bottom circle (signed with blue circle) indicates the word meaning if it is used in the phrases. You can try this dictionary by downloading through the link below.

Download Here

Mistakes in learning English

2010-01-04T16:36:00.004+07:00

Some foreign language learners say that learning English is very difficult. They find that English has very different structure than either mother tongue or their second language. Besides, to speak English, they also need to master how to pronounce English word. Since the learners are accustomed to speak their daily language (for example, Indonesian) with its dialect, they may find difficulties to speak in English accent.

Moreover, the low motivation of learning English is also big barrier of mastering English. Motivation is a kind of individual aspects which still can be influenced even from the some external factors, such as our friends, books, and other resources. If people having low motivation or considered as unconfident people, they will find many problems.

Pessimistic or having low motivation in learning English are kind of inhibiting factor which must be ignored. Pessimistic will lead us to the failure. Furthermore, anxiety will bring us to make many mistakes. However, for some learners, they may not able to get rid from that feeling. Then, they start to make mistakes.

Here are some mistakes that they may make:

1. Trying to make it perfect.

There is Indonesian proverb says “tak ada gading yang tak retak” (there is no elephant ivory which isn’t cracked). It means that everything must not be perfect. So, why must be afraid to make mistakes while learning?

In speaking a language, some people may make some mistakes, even when you speak your own mother tongue. I think you have ever made mistake in speaking a word in your native (for example, Indonesian). Mistakes will be the most common thing in the learning process and with some practices we can try to minimize the mistakes.

2. Comparing our language

Some learner may compare their English to their friend who is better in English, or even to the native speaker. It lead them to use more difficult words, and try to construct difficult sentences, but what will actually happen is that they just speak confusing sentences.

To avoid this mistake, people need to aware that they speak their English. So, they need to be confident with their own English. People can use simple English sentences to communicate. As long as you understand the conversation and they do either, it can be very good communication.

3. Translating words

Vocabulary is the basic need of mastering language. However, some people may use memorizing method in acquiring new vocabulary. They spend many times to translate a word rather than trying to paraphrase it.

Paraphrasing is the activity of understanding a word by guessing from the context. It’s doesn’t matter if we don’t get the exact meaning of the sentence. We just need to get the point and it will make us to be able to understand a sentences.

People can use thesaurus to get a word meaning. Through thesaurus, people will get the similar word of the word they don’t understand. Once they know a word meaning, they will also get the other varieties of that word.

Welcome 2010

2009-12-31T21:25:00.000+07:00

In my spare time, I've made this image just to welcome 2010. I hope that this year will be better than 2009. Since, I met many mistakes in the previous year, I need to create a proper plan to solve my problems that I,ve ever found.

In this occasion, I would like to share my resolution for the next challenging year. It's probably my chance to prove that I can do more in this blessed year. However, life cannot be run in a simple plan. I need more detail and complete plan to reach my expectation in this year.

goodbye 2009, welcome 2010

Three days for annually meeting

2009-12-31T21:16:00.000+07:00

Just two days ago, I attended a very important meeting in Tawangmangu, Karanganyar, Indonesia. In that special occasion, we discussed many things related to the evaluation of whole institution output. Some division (such as marketing, academic, technical and human resources) had to give their report to the director as the owner of the company.

Academic division, which is included me as a member, also need to report all the works in a year. However, we still need times to make internal meetings to improve our quality in the performance. Besides, we also meet with other division to enhance our teamwork and to avoid miscommunication.

from left to right: Yudi, Azys, Dimas, Ali

The most important things which may not be forgot was the three days living in a comfortable hotel in the top of Karanganyar. Since, the hotel wasn't far from the Grojogan Sewu waterfall, it provided a fresh and clear air. It also helped us, especially instructor, to refresh their mind after teaching the whole semester (about six month).

Teaching Method: Total physical Response

2009-12-13T12:51:00.008+07:00

Azys Syaiful Anwar

For a teacher, the method of conveying their lesson is very important. In language teaching, especially second or foreign language learning, teacher has to applied proper method which suitable with the students' condition. One of the methods that teacher may use is Total physical response (TPR). It is a method which is used to help learning second languages. TPR is based on the assumption that human brain has ability to acquired natural language. In the other words, TPR tends to emphasize that second language learning is parallel to the mother tongue acquisition. It involves some natural process of obtaining the language.

Basically, TPR demands the physical responses/feedbacks from the learners. In a language classroom, teacher has a role just like the real parents of the students. The learning process is mainly dominated with command and respond. Teacher may use some words/utterances then students must respond with physical activity. It is useful to teach imperatives and various tenses and aspects. Besides, It can be applied for story-telling.According to James Asher, there are some principles of TPR:

Second language learning is parallel to first language learning and should reflect the same naturalistic processes
Listening should develop before speaking
Children respond physically to spoken language, and adult learners learn better if they do that too
Once listening comprehension has been developed, speech devlops naturally and effortlessly out of it.
Adults should use right-brain motor activities, while the left hemisphere watches and learns
Delaying speech reduces stress.

Since this method involved the spoken language and the activities, it will encourage students in learning, especially for young learners. Young learners like to move or do many activities rather than stay in their comfortable chairs. In the TPR classroom, They may not bored with the lesson. Teachers may construct activity involving the use of words and physical activities. They can use interactive games, such as Simon Says, and many more.

Comprehending a foreign language conversation, why it is so difficult?

2009-12-06T14:21:00.000+07:00

Comprehending a foreign language conversation, why it is so dif

In the community, people usually talk about their daily life, politics, recent news, private experience, etc. there are many topics which may be discussed in their daily conversation. Then, how if we become a foreigner in that community, will we gain some information about their conversation? Although we are foreign language learner, have we the ability of understanding foreign language conversation?

In a common school of Indonesia, English as foreign language is taught with the main emphasize of understanding the structure of sentences. Teacher usually demands their student mastering the writing skill rather than comprehending the text or conversation. As a result, students are able to construct the grammatical sentences, but they have less ability to apply English in the real conversation. As my experiences of learning English, I found that there are differences between spoken languages usually used in daily conversations and written language. Those differences may lead us to find many problems in learning English.

The first thing that differentiates the spoken and written language is that spoken language has redundancy. Redundancy can be said as telling information for many times. For example: when you’ve been asked for your condition, you said “I’m, fine…I mean it’s awesome”. It seems that you tell your friend with over expression. However, redundancy sometimes gives the listener more information and time to comprehending a conversation. Learners need to pay attention to the redundancy signal to get an understanding of spoken language.

The other important part of spoken language is the reduced form. This is the most common form which may be found in our daily conversation. Reduced form can be phonologically, morphologically, syntactic and pragmatic. The language learner may feels strange when find a word which is phonologically reduced, such as “dityaeatyet?” (Did you eat yet?) or in the pragmatic situation, for example: when your friend hear your cell phone rings, then he/she will say “John, phone!”.

Comprehending a conversation tends to difficult, especially for foreign language learner. There are many characteristics of spoken language which may not be learned in a formal school, such as redundancy and reduced form. Besides, spoken language involves colloquialism which may also provide idioms and many foreign utterances. Language learners usually find many troubles in understanding it.

Language laboratory classroom

2009-11-28T18:47:00.001+07:00

Managing a language laboratory classroom

Language laboratory is a place where the language learners are able to study language more precisely and enjoyable. In the language laboratory, pupils mainly study listening comprehension which is focused on audio learning resources. It means that they are introduced to some utterances and spoken language conveyed through an audio or audio-visual media.

Teaching language must be different with teaching other subjects. Teacher needs to emphasize the use of language features correctly, especially in writing section. However, in the listening and speaking comprehension, the use of correct grammatical structure can be ignored. Spoken language tends to be spontaneous. Moreover, spoken language may happen in any situation, it isn’t planed and organized well.

In a language laboratory class which demands more about speaking and learning comprehension, students can improve their language mastery by understanding a conversation. From a dialogue, they may obtain new vocabularies related to utterances, greetings and reduced form of words. Therefore, they are not only able to understand the structure of the sentences but also understanding how to speak and giving feedback to a situation.

Since mastering language isn’t easy things to do, teacher needs to commit some efforts to improve students’ ability in learning language. Language laboratory provides the learning solutions. It facilitates students in comprehending language. Teacher needs to wisely arrange good language laboratory activities that involve students in giving feedback/responses in the learning process.

2009-11-28T18:33:00.005+07:00

Learning easier with proper solution formulas

2009-11-28T01:23:00.001+07:00

Children or adults they have their own ways of learning. However, the most important thing is that they need a proper method in learning. Since the school activities, sometimes, make children confused in obtaining the learning subject, such as math, physics, biology, etc. Children may need some helps to improve their learning result.

Parents may choose a private course for children and it will be better if they take a professional learning assistant provider. You can visit algebra-help to see more detail about the course that children may take. Math or physics sometimes become a very difficult to learn. Through a better and intensive learning method, learning those subjects can be more easier.

As what we know, learning Math, Chemistry and Physics must be related to the data's computing which is including numbers. That's the reason why students dislike and tend to avoid that subjects to learn. Actually, there is many solution of learning which can be obtained through scheduled course. This is very helpful for children in understanding the learning subjects. In learning Math, for example, we need a better solution which can help students solving Math problem faster. The course itself have to provide well structured and well thought out Math tutoring program. The formula given must afford to solve math-word-problems.

Learning is about understanding a material. You need to do not only one in a month or a week, you need to do it daily. However, if you don't have enough time to study in a class or attend a course. You can choose E-learning to solve your learning problems. E-learning is about on line tutorial which you can retrieved through Internet network. You can try to learn from a site for example when finding math-problems you can search the best solution through on line tutorial, such as math-answers .

MA sentence to disable the national test for students graduation (UN)

2009-11-28T00:21:00.001+07:00

Mahkamah agung (MA), the highest supreme court of Indonesia, issued a shocking sentence which directly affected the education field. The sentence is related to the prohibition of the national test for students graduation (UN). This surprising decision demanded government not to run the national graduation test on 2010.

The MA's decision is based on citizen lawsuit which is submitted by some educational elements, such as students, teachers and some educational scholars. However, Education Department of Indonesia will think about submitting reconsideration (PK) to MA. This is to prevent the national graduation test becoming illegal in 2010.

National Education Ministry of Indonesia, Mohammad Nuh, will organize their troops to anticipate this problem. He said, as cited in Seputar Indonesia daily newspaper, “Kita akan koordinasikan dulu”. It means that government through education department will do some efforts to save the national graduation test.

Tips to teach children about animals

2009-11-28T00:02:00.000+07:00

Children usually have higher curiosity than adult do. They use their time to learn something new. They can learn from their surrounding. The most important, we can help them to learn by supporting them. We can be a good facilitator in learning. In this writing, I would like to give some tips about how to introduce children to animals. There are some option which may help you:

Story telling.

The first and easiest way of teaching children about animal is using a story. The story must be a fable which provides a lot of moral value. You can choose a story book with colorful animal characters to attract your children's interest. However, the most important thing is your ability in conveying the story. You can be a funny and silly person when reading the story. It may entertain your kids and stimulate them to laugh. Through this way, children will automatically received more information about animals.

Picture

This is considered as the most common way of introducing animals. Pictures is the representation of the real animal. You can just show the picture and start to introduce your children to the animals shown through pictures. However, you can also create some activities for your children, such as, drawing or coloring the animal pictures.

Visiting a zoo.

Visiting zoo may the perfect solution of introducing children to animals. This accommodates children to see and recognize the animal directly. Besides, your children won't be bored because they are involved in the real world of animals. They are not only able to learn the animals' name but also the animals behavior and other animals' characteristics.

Those tips above is just my opinion which can be a reference in guiding your children learning about animals. If you plan any other activities, please consider the animals' characteristic as the main resources of your method in introducing children to animals. However, I hope that tips will help you. :)

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2009-11-27T22:45:00.051+07:00

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Teaching English as Foreign Language Problems

2009-11-18T20:44:00.003+07:00

Since English is foreign language, learning English for Indonesian may be difficult. Learning foreign language isn’t as easy as learning second language. When learning second language, people may have many chances to practice it in the community. Meanwhile, it is almost impossible to use foreign language in the indonesian community.For that reason, Teaching English is considered as a difficult job which demands the specific skills.

Some teaching method has been improved to enhance the quality of teaching and learning, such as TPR, Communicative approach, direct method, etc. However, there are still many problems during the Teaching English as Foreign Language (TEFL).During my first TEFL (as an English instructor trainee) in a junior school in Boyolali, I got several problems, such as:

Students’ low motivation in learning English

Sometime, I meet students with low interest in learning, esspecially English. They tend to think that English is too dificult to learn and it doesn’t applicable in the real community.

The lack of vocabulary mastery of the students

Students have less vocabulary mastery because they rarely get vocabularies from their own comprehension. They only commit to memory some difficult words and their meaning.

The bad management of the teachers

Not only from students, I also confess that sometimes I made mistakes in teaching. Managing students may be a problem. In certain classes, I need to determine proper teaching methods.

TEFL is considered to be more difficult than teaching both mother tongue and second language. There are many problems which can be found during its process. Through this writting, I just want to share my experiences and hopefully you give appropriate solutions for those problems.

Motivation as the First Priority of Success in Learning Process

2009-11-12T19:27:00.001+07:00

Motivation as the first priority of success in learning process

In my opinion, motivation can be defined as the internal factor of human which highly stimulate them to do something. However, other factors (such as teacher, the lesson, and student condition) may influence whether motivation will be reduced or improved. Related to the students, high motivation will lead them to a better learning atmosphere. It brings students to be more enthusiastic in the teaching-learning process. Their desire of learning is improved through the pupils’ motivation.

Motivation comes from student’s internal condition. However, it can be influenced by some external factor, such as family condition, teacher, book, and friend. Besides, students need positive stimulants that may improve their motivation, especially in learning. They may enjoy in their learning process when having good physical condition. Giving students enough food nutrients can be a solution for their health.

Due to the importance of motivation, teacher as the students’ facilitator takes the urgent role of increasing students’ motivation. Teacher may create a fun and interesting teaching-learning program without ignoring the main objectives of the lesson. It seems hard to do but it’s really important. Teacher can use not only text book, they can create fun activities such as games, or use other teaching tools, such as picture, flash cards, etc. It may attract students’ interest and give them motivation to learn the material.

Students dislike to learn in pressure and they enjoy the positive learning. Teacher can help students to learn by adjusting their teaching method. However, they shouldn’t lose their power as teacher. If they find trouble makers, teachers can give proper punishment. Some constraints in the class must be clear and pupils have to respect to them. In the contrary, for the students who are successfully done teacher tasks may achieve reward. The reward can be additional score, approbation, achievement star, etc. Teacher may give reward to students to make a competition and it will increase their motivation in learning.

Since motivation is very important to determine the success of teaching and learning process in the class, the motivation of learning have to be improved through fun and joyful learning. Besides, students itself need to pay attention to their physical condition. A better students’ health will make them able to attend the lesson well.

Folklore: one of media to teach children morality

2009-11-05T21:25:00.001+07:00

by Azys Syaiful Anwar

Folklore is kind of tales which is related to culture and traditional values. Fable, fairy tales or short story may be listed as folklore. Folklore is usually used to convey some wise message while entertaining children. Since its educative purpose, folklore still exists and even popular for children. It is mostly told before children having sleep or in other occasion. Through folklore, children will intensionally acquire more morality values. The main message of tales is that justice and goodness will always win.

Folklore may give impact for children. It can be a media of conveying the basic of good behavior because it is fun and doesn't force children to do something. It is naturally taught them how they should be through some message implied there. The character of the tales may give perfect example of the effect of acting bad or good. In the 'Malin Kundang' tales, for example, children will know the bad effect of mutiny the parents, that is becoming statue as what happened to Malin Kundang.

In addition, folklore is easily persuading children to do good things. Some say that folklore, or fairy tales can improve the intelligence, emotional and spiritual value of children. Moreover, it can develop children's morality that may lead them to be able to determine the negative or positive of attitudes, values or behavior. It directly influence the way of children solving problems. Besides , it educates children to be more wise and respect to their surrounding, such as their friend, parents and their environment.

Folklore also emphasizes on the children imagination. I have ever heard that imagination is more powerful than the reality. Imagination may important to children development. It can improve the intelligence and give some good values to children. Through folklore, parents can teach children responsibility of becoming social creatures. Morality, religious, cultural values that may implied in the folklore giving them perfect modeling of becoming a real human.

What do our kids eat at the school?

2009-11-03T20:46:00.008+07:00

What do our kids eat at the school