Review of Teaching English as Foreign Language Course (Part 1-5)

Review of Teaching English as A Foreign Language Course

Denny Nugraha – ELT Dept. B – 6^Th Semester

Part 1 – February 14^th 2016

Terms in English Language Teaching and Learning

Tuesday, February 9^th 2016, was the first meeting on the course of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) with Mr. Zakky Yavany. In this meeting, he initiated of his responsibility to do the lecture of this course in this semester. The course was started at 12.30 p.m in room 202 of the TBI’s building second floor.

In this opportunity, Mr. Zakky brought us to his presentation. In the very beginning slide of the presentation, he posed a question to us “is teaching English important?”. In my opinion, teaching English is important because in this communication era, we are demanded to master the global or international language, that is English. Moreover, recently since the end of 2015, Indonesia together with more or less eleven countries that are associated as ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) have legalized the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). Therefore, this really has an impact to the mastery of skill in communicating English as an understandable language for all countries.

Furthermore, Mr. Zakky explained about the differences of the first, second, and foreign language. The differences are elaborated as follows:

-          First language is the language that is firstly acquired by a child. It is certainly learned in the very early of childhood. In this period, children can be multilingual (master in two/more languages) if they learn languages before the puberty period.

-          Second language is the language that is learned after the first language. It is the additional language and it is not only as the second language, but it can be the third language or even the fifth language.

-          Foreign language is the language that learned after the first language but it is not easily accessed as well as the first language.

Then, there are several terms related to the teaching of English. They are as in the following:

-          ENL (English as Native Language) occurs in which English is treated as the first language like in England, U.S, Australia, and New Zealand.

-          ESL (English as Second Language) happens in the countries where English is mostly learned after the first language, such as in Singapore, Malaysia, India, Brunei, and Philippines.

-          EFL (English as Foreign Language) takes place in the country that treats English as the subsequent language after the first one but has restricted access to use English, such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, China, etc.

In line with the teaching practice, there are some key terms that can be referred to the above elaboration:

-          TESL (Teaching English as Second Language)

-          TEFL (Teaching English as Foreign Language)

-          TESOL (Teaching English for Speaker of Other Language)

-          TEYL (Teaching English to Young Learners)

-          TEFLIN (Teaching English as Foreign Language in Indonesia)

The post method era of English:

-          WEs (World Englishes)

-          ELF (English as Lingua Franca)

-          EIL (English as International Language)

# Question Review:

1.       To what extent do you agree to localize English materials?

Answer:

1.       I completely disagree to localize English materials in Indonesia. There are at least two reasons why I disagree. Firstly, the grammar of English and of Indonesia are extremely different. Thus localizing English materials will omit the essence of grammar or structure of English. Secondly, it is strange for native speakers of English to make sense the localized Indonesian English. so that, localizing English materials in schools or other educational institutions will greatly affect to students’ use of English, especially when they interact and communicate with native English speaker.

Review of Teaching English as A Foreign Language Course

Denny Nugraha – ELT Dept. B – 6^Th Semester

Part 2 – February 21^st 2016

The Language-centered Methods and The Learning-centered Methods

Tuesday, February 16^th 2016, was the second meeting of the course of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) with Mr. Zakky Yavany. In this opportunity, he came to the class as early as usual. The course then was started primarily at 12.30 p.m in room 202 of TBI’s building on its second floor.

In this meeting, based on Mr. Zakky’s instruction, there are two groups that present the selected topic from the syllabus. The first group was about to present the language-centered methods and then the second group was about to present the learning-centered methods. Each group spent about thirty minutes for the presentation and the question-answer session.

Furthermore, the first group explained about a description of a number of language-centered methods or traditional language teaching methods, namely the grammar-translation method (GTM), direct method (DM), reading method (RM), and audio-lingual method (ALM). Here are the elaboration of them respectively as follows:

-          Grammar translation method (GTM) is the oldest method originally used in teaching Greek and Latin. This method, as itsname, focuses only on the teaching of grammar and translation.

-          Direct method (DM) is a method of reaction to the extension of GTM to the teaching of modern languages, such as English. It focuses on the use of the target language presented orally with actions or pictures. There’s no translation so that the mother tongue is never used.

-          Reading method (RM) is selected for practical reasons and the one usable skills for those who do not travel abroad. The focus of this method is on reading comprehension.

-          Audio-lingual method (ALM) is a method as a reaction to the weakness of reading method that looked like returning to the GTM. It focuses on the sequence of skills, listen-speak-read-write.

-          Cognitive method is a method of reaction to the behaviorist features of ALM. The focus is based on the view that written language skills (reading and writing) and the spoken language skills (listening and speaking) are as being of equal importance.

-          Eclectic method is treated as an alternative method, to solve the weaknesses of each method as discussed above.

Then, the second group explained the learning-centered methods. The methods are such as total physical response (TPR), the silent way, community language learning (CLL), the natural approach, and suggestopedia. The elaboration of these methods are as in the following:

-          Total physical response (TPR) is a method or innovative method that is about carrying out commands (right-brain functioning). The focus is to teach oral proficiency to produce learners who can communicate intelligibly with native speakers.

-          The silent way is a method that is taught the language without grammatical explanation or modelling from the teacher.

-          Community language learning (CLL) is a method of an extension of counseling learning method (CLM). The focus is on the near-native mastery.

-          The natural approach is an approach that is designed to give beginners and intermediate learners basic communicative skills. The focus is on the four broad areas: basic personal communicative skills (oral/written) and academic learning skills (oral/written).

-          Suggestopedia is one of the five innovative methods that is based on the belief that learning occurs through suggestion in a deeply relaxed state. The focus is on the delivery of advanced conversational competence quickly.

Review of Teaching English as A Foreign Language Course

Denny Nugraha – ELT Dept. B – 6^Th Semester

Part 3 – March 2^nd 2016

Lesson Plan and Learning-Teaching Activity

Tuesday, on March 1st 2016, was the third meeting of the course of the teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) with Mr. Zakky Yavany. In this meeting, he entered into the class with a high passion that was shown in his face. As usual, the class began regularly at 12.30 p.m in room 202 of the TBI’s building second floor.

In this opportunity, Mr. Zakky explained about lesson-planning. Before he started to explain that topic, he asked us for providing a sheet of paper and starting to draw a scenery. He gave us a freedom about our style of drawing a mountain’s view or a sea shore’s view. After that, about five minutes we were drawing, he ordered us to exchange our picture with our friend who sits next to us. As a result, we knew that our picture were different from each other. Mr. Zakky said that in achieving a certain same goal, everyone has different and distinctive way based on their desire, just like drawing a view.

In lesson-planning activity, as a teacher we may face some distractions that can break our plan into the failure. Mr. Zakky mentioned some of the facts in the teaching process based on the real situation, the causes of those disturbances are as follows:

-          There are student(s) who come(s) late

-          Grouping activity

-          The teacher lose his/her students’ trust

-          Students are getting into the fight

Furthermore, according to the explanation above, we can see that, sometimes our plan is not always suitable with the real situation. Mr. Zakky said that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. The plan can be sometimes changed based on the reality that may be different in our expectation. So that, it is about our creativity to plan especially in lesson planning.

In defining the lesson plan, we define also the goal of the teaching and learning activity. The question is that ‘is teaching English only our goal?’. In my opinion, the goal of teaching English is not only about ‘English’, but there are many aspects that should be taken into consideration. They are such as, the attitude, behavior, language awareness, and morality. These cannot be separated from the goal of the teaching English to students.

There are several terms about the teaching and learning activity. Those terms are related to the model of activity, namely such as communicative, collaborative, creative, and critical thinking. In addition, Mr. Zakky explained about the basic goals of learning such as in the following:

-          Learning to know

-          Learning to be

-          Learning to do

-          Learning to live together

These basic objectives lead to the several aspects of learning outputs, they are as follows:

-          Spiritual aspect

-          Social aspect

-          Knowledge (cognitive aspect)

-          Skills (psychomotor aspect)

Therefore, so far we can conclude that teaching is not about testing and that’s why learning is not just about the score. Learning is learning.

Moreover, the curriculum plays an important role in teaching and learning activity. In Indonesia, since 1968, the government gradually changed the policy of education at least six times till 2013 (Kurtilas).

All of the curriculum (1968; 1975; 1984; 1994; 2004; 2006; 2013) have their own characteristics. The curriculum of KBK (competence-based curriculum, 2004) and the later curriculum have what are called the genre-based literacy or literacy approach which consists of Building Knowledge of Field (BKoF), Modelling of Text (MoT), Joint Construction of Text (JCoT), and Independent Construction of Text (ICoT).

The procedure of the learning activity is different among the above curriculum. The common procedure in KBK (2004) and KTSP (2006) such as in the following:

-          Exploration

-          Elaboration

-          Confirmation

-          Practice

-          Produce

-          Presentation

In Kurtilas, the procedure of instructions are:

-          Observing

-          Asking/question

-          Gathering information

-          Associating

-          Communicating

# Question Review

1.       Learning for fun or fun learning?

Answer:

1.       In my opinion, I prefer fun learning, because fun learning leads to the better learning’s output of students. As a result, learning is fun but it is not only for fun, it is just the approach.

Review of Teaching English as A Foreign Language Course

Denny Nugraha – ELT Dept. B – 6^Th Semester

Part 4 – March 4^th 2016

Teaching, Testing, and Learning Procedure

Friday, March 4th 2016, was the fourth meeting of the course of the teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) with Mr. Zakky Yavany. In this opportunity, he came to the classroom as usual. Then, he started the course at 1.45 p.m in room 202 of TBI’s building on its second floor.

In this meeting, Mr. Zakky initiated the course with one statement in the whiteboard. The statement was that ‘teaching is not testing’. He instructed us to make groups by counting from one until five, then we have to gather with our group based on the number that we counted. We discussed about the statement. In my own opinion, teaching is a process that is started from the step of exploration till the evaluation. Whereas, testing is the last step or as the way to know the achievement of the teaching and learning process. Thus, teaching is not testing but testing is as a part of teaching which is used to know the teaching and learning evaluation.

Testing, moreover, has been defined in the lesson plan to measure the achievement of teacher’s teaching and students’ learning process. In addition, testing is important, but it has to be well-measured in its objective. Measuring the process is the task of the teacher, but testing is not the only way to do that. Because the students are not the same in the process. They have various intelligences. So that, testing (cogntively) should be prepared by the teacher in order to measure students’ achievement.

Furthermore, Mr. Zakky came up with another question that is related to this topic. His question was that ‘is it a good idea to criticize your teacher?’. There were some answers from my friends, but in my own opinion, it is good as long as we do not lose our politeness to our teacher. In the way of emerging the critical thinking, we have to know first about the crucial skills in this 21st century. One of the skill is about the literacy skill as described in the following diagram:

                                Theoretical (Passive)

Literacy

                                Applicative (Active)

According to Mr. Zakky’s explanation, literacy is the ability to do everything based on our knowledge and experience. The skills which are included in literacy are: critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity, information literacy, and media literacy.

The procedure of learning (Scientific approach 2013)

1.       Observing

Observing in the learning process can be seeing a happening or occurence/events, reading a book/articles/journals/other scientific works, and listening to a certain story or information.

2.       Questioning

This can be done through conducting a dialogue or question-answer session concerning with a certain information which is gained from the result of observation.

3.       Gathering information/experimenting

The activity is to define the data that are needed from the questions proposed. Then it moves to search the data to support whether the information is accepted or refused.

4.       Associating

This is to link one information with another information that is known by the students previously or by making a formula that is generally information achieved.

5.       Networking/communicating

The final activity that is to represent, communicate or conclude the data which have been experimented.

The four model of learning in Kurtilas (2013)

1.       Inquiry-based learning

One of the four model of learning that has some steps or syntax as in the following:

a.       Observation

b.       Proposing question

c.       Proposing hypothesis or possible answer

d.       Collecting data correlated with the hypothesis or question

e.       Formulating conclusions based on the data that have been organized and analyzed.

2.       Discovery-based learning

This model is defined as the process of learning which is happened when the students are not being offered the lesson in the final form, but they should organize it themselves. The stages of this model are as follows:

a.       Stimulation

b.       Problem statement

c.       Data collection

d.       Data processing

e.       Generalization

f.        Verification

3.       Problem-based learning

This is a learning model which involves students to solve the problem through scientific approach steps so they can learn the knowledge related to that problem and the skill to solve it. The steps are as in the following list:

a.       Problem-oriented stimulation

b.       The organization of learning activity

c.       Self-investigation

d.       Analysis and process evaluation

e.       Developing and serving the result.

4.       Project-based learning

This is a learning model in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an engaging and complex question problem or challenge. The steps of this model are as follows:

a.       Preparing the questions

b.       Designing the planning project

c.       Organizing the activities and project development

d.       Monitoring the activities and project development

e.       Examining the result of activities

f.        Evaluating the activities.

Review of Teaching English as A Foreign Language Course

Denny Nugraha – ELT Dept. B – 6^Th Semester

Part 5 – March 13^th 2016

The Learner-centered Methods and Teaching English to Young Learners

Tuesday, March 8th 2016, was the fifth meeting of the course of the teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) with Mr. Zakky Yavany. In this meeting, as he came to the classroom, he greeted us with his nice smile in his face. We started the course this afternoon at 1.40 p.m in room 202 of TBI’s building on its second floor.

In this opportunity, after Mr. Zakky opened the class, the third group directly began the discussion of this meeting. The group explained about the learner-centered methods. The objective of this topic was about that we could understand the methods of teaching and learning in EFL context in Indonesia. In addition, actually there were two groups that were responsible to present their own topic from the book of TEFL in Indonesia recommended by Mr. Zakky. The fourth group was about to deliver the topic of teaching English to young learner. Each group spent about forty five minutes for the presentation session and the question-answer session.

Furthermore, the third group made a clear elaboration of the learner-centered methods. One method that was popular before the arrival of the post-method era is the communicative language teaching or CLT. The explanation was begun with the notions under the subtopic of background of CLT, then followed by the communicative competence model, CLT syllaby, phases of CLT, criticism on CLT, and then it was ended by the elaboration briefly about the post-method era.

The background of CLT was about the frustrating result, chomsky’s view of CLT, and the increasing of interdependence. Then, the phases of CLT are the Wilkin’s period (1976) concerned about the notion-functions in CLT, the need analysis which was defined by Munby (1978) and the last is about the procedural, process, and task syllabus which were argued by Prabhu (1984). Moreover, there are some features of CLT which are the most recognized by David Nunan (1991). They are namely as in the following list:

-          Emphasizing the student-to-student interaction in the target language for learning a language

-          Providing learners with opportunities to focus not only on language but also on the learning process itself

-          The introduction of authentic materials into the learning situation

-          An enhancement of the learners’ own responsibility and contribution to learning the target language

-          Creating a link between classroom language learning and language activities outside the classroom.

The further explanation of this group was about the criticism on CLT and the post-methods era of CLT. The criticism of CLT was placed at some problems of CLT, the Andarson’s critique and Burnaby and Sun’s claim in the application of the task-based learning proposed by Munby (1978). Finally, the post-methods era characterized the alternative method to method rather than an alternative method and the recognition of teacher’s autonomy.

Then, the second group had explained about teaching English to young learners. In the very beginning of this group explanation, there are several characteristics of young learners, then the explanation was continued by the elaboration about how do young learners learn languages, some teaching principles, the teaching and learning activities, total physical response, and ended by the explanation of the other activity in TEYL.

The characteristics of young learners lead to the following points:

-          They (children) have a first language and they can read and write already.

-          They like dynamic activities/movements.

-          They have short time concentration.

-          They like to ask questions.

-          They have some world knowledge (encyclopedic knowledge).

-          They can work in groups.

-          They are naturally ready to learn a foreign language.

And then, there are some key terms related with how do young learners learn a language:

-          Sensory-motor stage

-          Pre-operational stage

-          Concrete operational stage

-          Formal operational stage

Furthermore, the explanation moved to the teaching principles as follows:

-          Children have mastered the first language.

-          They use English normally and naturally

-          Combining meaning-focused and form-focused activities.

-          Do not explain too much to them.

-          Involve all senses.

-          Create supporting environment.

-          Many activities to be included.

-          Display students to be included.

-          Using audio and visual media to support.

-          Give reinforcement, encouragement, and motivation.

The last explanation was about the kinds of teaching and learning activities such as teaching routines, total physical response (TPR), and singing/creating a song. Therefore, the teaching English to young learners can be more fun with the application of these activities. Thus, the language that is being learned by children can make sense to their understanding at their level.

# Question/tasks Review:

1.       The problems of the implementation of CLT in Indonesia may have similarities and differences from those summarized by Li. Discuss the problems and their possible causes!

2.       Discuss the advantages and the disadvantages of autonomous teachers in Indonesia context!

Answer:

1.       Problems of the implementation of CLT in Indonesia as summarized by Li:

-          CLT is not always compatible with EFL culture and values. Culture is often considered as a barrier in creating a communicative form of English learning in EFL context. This is caused by the belief that the teacher is always right, so that the communicative approach doesn’t always work to raise the students’ reaction.

-          CLT method is not often compatible with university entrance exam. The impact of a test on teaching and learning is commonly referred to as washback effect. This is caused by the reality that the graduated learners who were taught in CLT teaching method, so that students don’t have the thinking that the method is useful for them.

2.       The advantages of autonomous teachers in Indonesia context:

a.       Empowering the teachers in the use of their own ideas

b.       Making the creativity of the teachers, to work together for coming up with many more ideas moving the relevant to the teachers’ own context.

c.       Exercising their rights to withdraw from group activities.

3.       The disadvantages of autonomous teachers:

a.       Taking up more session time, which means a reduction in the number of ‘new’ ideas presented.

b.       It might seem a waste of time.

Download Here