Menyambung postingan tentang PPL sebelumnya, di post kali ini saya akan sedikit bercerita mengenai pengalaman saya melakukan observasi di salah satu kelas di SMP Negeri 4 Sleman. Sebagai calon guru Bahasa Inggris ganteng yang baik, saya harus mampu mencuri teknik mengajar guru-guru yang sudah berpengalaman untuk selanjutnya saya terapkan di diri saya. Berikut ini kisah tentang observasi yang saya lakukan pada 17 Maret 2015 lalu, yah, meskipun dalam bentuk research vignette alias skema untuk menentukan masalah dalam penelitian, dan dalam Bahasa Inggris. Here you are.
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LANGUAGE TEACHING-LEARNING RESEARCH
On Tuesday, March 17th 2015, the researcher went to a class in one of junior high schools in his city. He did an observation on English lesson in a second grade classroom that consists of 32 students. The English teacher of the class, Mrs. Rusbaniah agreed to the researcher’s appointment the day before. He was told by the English teacher that the English class on that day will begin at 07:40 AM. The researcher arrived at the school at exactly 07:30 AM. At the schoolyard, he saw many students standing in lines, there were also 3-4 teachers there. Then, he met Mrs. Rusbaniah at the teacher’s office and she showed him the lesson plan that she will carry that day. After the bell rang, Mrs. Rusbaniah led him to the classroom.
When the researcher entered the room, the students of the class greeted him in a good manner. He saw many empty chairs in the classroom. It turned out that the empty chairs belong to the students who were in the schoolyard, being punished by the manager of the extracurricular because those students skipped the extracurricular on the previous Saturday. The researcher was then introduced to the students by the teacher and he sat down in the backside of the class. The teacher started the class by greeting the students and asked them who were absent that day. The students answered the greetings enthusiastically. There were mistakes on the teacher’s greetings, for example “Is there any absent today?” or “Let’s we continue..” She then asked the students whether they like reading or not. The answers varied. Some students said yes, some others did not say anything. She finally told the class that they will be learning narrative texts that day.
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| "Cerita rakyat apa saja yang kamu sukai?” |
The class usually uses lesson materials in the form of pieces of paper, the same with what they got that day. The first piece of paper consisted of questions about folktales around the students. The teacher asked them to answer the questions orally, both in English and Bahasa Indonesia, for example “Which folktales or local legends do you like the best?/ Cerita rakyat apa saja yang kamu sukai?” or “Who were the characters?/ Siapa saja tokoh di dalamnya?” Then the students answered the questions enthusiastically, also in English and Bahasa Indonesia, some of them even jokingly answered by mentioning titles of television show they watched. The class was very active and initiative, especially when the teacher asked them something related to their surroundings. The teacher also related the questions to the students’ families, made the students willingly answer the questions. She even told them the differences of the culture that exists in Indonesia and the culture in foreign countries.
The next piece of paper was about the narrative text, a story titled The Vain Little Mouse. Mrs. Rusbaniah read the story once and explained difficult words and the meanings in English and in Bahasa Indonesia. Although she mispronounced several words, for example “pretty”, “asked”, or “donkey”, the students still listened carefully. She explained the body of a narrative text, which are orientation, complication, and resolution. Then, she related the title of the text with the characters and the sequence of the story. She asked the meaning of the word “vain” and the students answered actively, although no one answered correctly. Then, she gave the students another piece of paper. It was about of the story The Vain Little Mouse and some questions. At that time, the students who were punished at the beginning of the class came back to the class, they greeted the teacher and then sat down on their seats sharing the papers with the others.
All of the students were asked to answer the questions with their deskmates. The class went noisy for several minutes until the teacher asked some of the students to write the answers on the whiteboard. Some students went in front of the class and wrote their answers. After all the questions were answered, the teacher discussed them with the students. Although some answers were wrong, she did not directly tell the students that they are wrong, instead she said “Do you all have same answer? Or different answers?/ Semua jawabannya sama? Ada yang berbeda?” and the students answered differently. Eventually, Mrs. Rusbaniah told them the correct answers. In this discussion activity, some students did not pay attention, two male students that sat at the backside of the class were even sleeping, placing their heads on the table. When they woke up, the teacher asked one of them to read the next story that was given to them, titled Snow White. The male student read the text loudly. The words he read were mostly mispronounced. Even before Mrs. Rusbaniah corrected him, his friends corrected the pronunciation. Some of them were even laughing at him, and it made the volume of his voice became lower and lower.
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| Zzzzzzzzzzz... |
After the male student finished reading the text, the teacher then asked the students the meaning of certain words, for example, “jealous”, “stepmother”, “dwarfs” or “poisoned”. The students answered the questions as they could, and the teacher corrected them. The bell had not even rang, but the clock already showed 09:05 AM that day, meaning that the break time should have been started. It made the students’ concentration scattered. They told Mrs. Rusbaniah to quickly end the class. Some of them even had stood up from their seats and were ready to go out. Mrs. Rusbaniah told them to wait for the bell sound, she calmly told them to get back to their seats. Then, the bell rang. She concluded the materials they had learned that day. Then, she told the students to come quickly to the class after the break because the lesson will be continued. Some students did not hear her, some even had gone to the canteen. Mrs. Rusbaniah then told the researcher to go outside the class to have some conversation.
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| My notes |
The researcher asked the teacher whether the other classes of the same grade have the same characteristics, it turned out that the class the researcher observed was the most active class yet the noisiest. The teacher told him that the other classes are similar but somehow different. The students of the other classes are not that noisy, but are also not that active. She told him that the students of second grade are mostly noisy and hyperactive, in a good way, although some of them are considered naughty and lazy. Mrs. Rusbaniah also told him that one of the students that belongs to the class is very noisy and naughty, but fortunately he did not come to the class after being punished in the schoolyard.
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| Front side of the school, facing the schoolyard |
The researcher also asked her whether the students in that class enjoy the English class more if they were given interesting media/aid such as videos or flashcards. She answered that the students are mostly bored if the materials were given in pieces of paper, just like what she had previously. They like it best when they were taught in the language laboratory or by using media, such as pictures or videos.
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Sebenarnya sangat menyenangkan bisa mengamati "calon siswa" saya besok dalam kegiatan belajar mengajar mereka, saya juga bisa tahu bagaimana seharusnya guru bertindak saat ada siswa yang ngeyel ataupun tidak memperhatikan pelajaran, yang paling lucu ya bisa menyaksikan mereka yang bahkan bisa tertidur nyenyak di bangku paling belakang. Super.
Well, terima kasih sudah menyempatkan membaca tulisan yang semrawut dan ala kadarnya ini. Sampai jumpa di postingan selanjutnya, mungkin akan saya ceritakan pengalaman ber-plesir-an saya. Semoga sehat selalu!
Yogyakarta, 23 Mei 2015
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