Redesigning The Scientific Approach for English Language Teaching and Learning

Redesigning The Scientific Approach for English Language Teaching and Learning

Denny Nugraha

TBI – B – 7

IAIN Syekh Nurjati Cirebon

Introduction

Innovative learning strategy in English language teaching has been seen as the necessity to fulfill the demand of the changing era. In Indonesia, in search of the suitable educational curriculum, the government has indeed made several changes in the policy of education. The changes periodically were believed to make the national education better than the policy made by the previous government and so on until now. However, the recent curriculum (curriculum 2013) is seen as problematic by some parties. In addition, it was perceived as controversial by some of educators, academicians and even politicians since it was officially set as the national curriculum by the recent government. It can be seen in many of education institutions from the secondary schools (SMP/MTs) and high schools (SMA/SMK/MA) which still implement the preceded curriculum (KTSP 2006). Even so, curriculum 2013 (henceforth K-13) is the official curriculum that should be adopted the whole educational institutions in Indonesia.

The characteristic of K-13 is that the learning activities in the classroom should be conducted using the scientific approach. The approach is recommended by the curriculum in every school subject including English. In this approach, the teachers are expected to empower learning activities that are scientifically based on the factual procedures. So that, the students can get the expected learning outcomes as they are getting involved in such scientific process. In addition, it is considered that the approach derives from the belief that learning is merely a scientific process that makes sense in students’ mind. But, in the one side, it is assumed that the scientific approach is viewed as not popular as the other approaches in English language teaching. In the other side, it supports that learning would be successful if it is done through the discovery of new things/knowledge that is systematically conducted as like a scientists who try to discover or reveal something different or new.

Scientific Approach in English Teaching

By some respects, it is unusual to apply the scientific approach for teaching English that is not included as the science domains like in teaching physics, biology, and chemistry. However, it should be regarded as like the discovery learning but distinctively different from those studies. In addition, Nasution’ notes (2013) quoted by Hidayat (2016) that the scientific approach has several stages, namely starting from observing, questioning, exploring or experimenting, reasoning or associating, and communicating or creating. Then, the stages are considerably brought into the following explanation.

According to Hidayat (2016), first, in the observing stage, students are directly involved in learning and also encouraged to be detail in using their senses. Second, in the questioning stage, the students formulate and propose questions about information which are not understood related to the topic. Third, in the exploring/experimenting stage, students should explore, try, discuss, demonstrate, imitate form/movement, do an experiment, read other sources except text book, and collect data from informants/questionnaire/interview. Fourth, in the reasoning/associating stage, the students process the data/information that have been collected, analyze the data, associate or connect phenomena/information to find out a pattern/system and making a conclusion. Last, in the communicating/creating stage, the students present the report into draft, diagram, or graph; arrange the written report; present the report including process, result, and conclusion orally. Those five stages then are believed to make a scientific learning process.

Furthermore, in his writing, Hidayat (2016) concludes that as he considered in some studies (Panjaitan, 2014; Sehatiin, 2015), the stages make the language teaching become inflexible. It can be seen that many teachers who found difficulties to conduct all stages because the time allotment for the approach is not enough. Therefore, the approach must be reset to deal with the policy and the reality in its implementation. It is supported by the late Alwasilah (2014) that English teaching should be redesigned to promote new forms of knowledge and culture and this would require a great deal of flexibility in the teaching methods. In line with this, the scientific approach should be redesigned especially for language teaching not only English to discover new forms of knowledge and culture. So that, it can be suitable for language teaching that is categorized as more flexible than the science studies.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the writer believes that it is high time to reconsider the implementation of scientific approach especially in English language teaching. Two important things to redesign the approach must be taken into account. The first is that to promote new forms of knowledge and culture, the approach should be adapted with the objectives of teaching English in schools. The objectives are to encourage students communicating in English according to the context of the language being used and to facilitate students with the aspects of interpretation, convention, collaboration, cultural knowledge, problem solving, and reflection. Then, the second is that English teaching should deal with its flexibility in teaching methods. In other words, it should not be taught by only one method/approach, but it should be flexible to adopt various methods/approaches in order to make the learning process joyful and not boring or even complicated for students. This has also to do with the teaching time management in the classroom by the teachers, so that the whole learning stages can be done properly.

References

Alwasilah, Chaedar. 2014. Islam, Culture, and Education: Essays on Contemporary Indonesia. Bandung: PT Remaja Rosdakarya.

Hidayat, Hendi. 2016. Revisiting the Scientific Approach in Language Teaching. An unpublished essay

Nasution, K. 2013. Aplikasi Model Pembelajaran dalam Perspektif Pendekatan Saintifik, Diktat Kemenag.

Panjaitan, S. 2015. The Implementation of Scientific Approach in Teaching Reading Comprehension at Smk Negeri 3 Jambi in the Academic Year 2014/2015. Jambi

Sehatiin, B. 2014. The Implementation of Scientific Approach in the Teaching of Reading Narrative Text to the Tenth Grade Students. UNESA