Journal Teachers' Teaching Strategies in English Classroom

8/10/2019 Journal Teachers' Teaching Strategies in English Classroom

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TEACHERS TEACHING STRATEGIES IN ENGLISH CLASSROOMS

(A Descriptive Study on the Eleventh Grade Students of State Vocational High School

in District Banyumas in the Academic Year 2013/2014)

A JOURNAL

By:

Fara Citra Ghossani

1001050048

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

TEACHING AND TRAINING EDUCATION FACULTY

THE UNIVERSITY OF MUHAMMADIYAH PURWOKERTO

2014


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JOURNAL

TEACHERS TEACHING STRATEGIES IN ENGLISH CLASSROOMS

(A Descriptive Study on the Eleventh Grade Students of Public Vocational High School in

District Banyumas in the Academic Year 2013/2014)

Fara Citra Ghossani

Lutfi Isthikharoh, M. Pd.

ABSTRACT: A Descriptive Study, entitled Teachers Teaching Strategies in English

Classroom which was conducted at eleventh grade of SMKN 1 Purwokerto, SMKN 2

Purwokerto, and SMKN 3 Purwokerto, revealed the teachers teaching strategies in English

classroom. This study was based on five mainparts of teaching strategy proposed by Majid

(2013) and Hamruni (2013): direct teaching strategy, indirect teaching strategy, interactive

teaching strategy, experiential teaching strategy, and independent teaching strategy.

The participants of the study were five teachers as the main participants and 140 students as

respondents in completing questionnaire. The data, which were collected and analyzed from

interview, observation, and questionnaire, showed that direct teaching strategy and interactive

teaching strategy were the most strategy that were frequently used by the teacher. Teacher

used direct teaching strategy since the students of High School still needed guiding from the

teacher to understand the learning material. Teacher also used interactive teaching strategy in

English classroom since the students were more participative in teaching learning process.

Keywords: Teaching Strategy, Direct Teaching Strategy, Interactive Teaching Strategy

INTRODUCTION

A learning process is a mental activity to study learning material or experience

which influenced by internal and external factors. According to Dimyati et al (1994: 228)

internal factors which influenced the learning process are attitude towards learning,

motivation, concentration in learning, storing the learning, show the learning, confident,

study the learning material, digging the results of the study, and students goal. On the other

hand, the external factors which influenced the learning process like students environment in

school, such as teacher, facilities in learning activity, policy of assessment, the curriculum in

school and the environment in house.

One of the external factors which can influence teaching learning process is ateacher. The teachers role as an informant needs a right step in delivering the learning

material. Most of the teachers in deliver the material by explaining it and only asking the

students to listen to the teacher and write the material in their book. Teaching learning

process by using this conventional way will make students feel bored quickly and students

will not pay attention to the material that is taught. However, teacher should arrange their

own teaching strategies to teach a certain lesson material. Teacher who expects the good

students achievement will apply a strategy to reach out that goal. Wena (2009: 2) explains


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that the use of strategy in teaching learning process is much needed because to ease learning

process so it can achieve optimum result. Teaching strategies is one of the important things in

teaching learning process to maintain efficiency and effectiveness of learning activity that is

done by students, thus article will reveal what teaching strategies that are commonly used by

teacher in English classroom.

THEORITICAL FRAMEWORK

Learning is an instructional system that refers to a set of component that depend

each other to reach the goal. Teachers should make a plan how teachers will teach the

material, what method and learning media that teachers will use before they teach the

students. Teacher should arrange their own teaching strategies to teach a certain lesson

material.

Teaching Strategy

Teaching strategies is comprehensive approach in a learning system which forms of

common rule and activity plan to achieve the common learning objective. Teaching strategies

is ways that will be used by teacher to choose learning activity during teaching learning

process.

Seels and Richey (1994: 31) and Moore (2005: 3) in Yamin (2013: 3-4) have the

same idea of what teaching strategy is. They define it as a specification for selection and

arranging the events and activities in a lesson with plan it to teach the lesson that there is a

method and steps to follow to do the teaching learning process.

Moreover, Majid (2013:7) and Kemp (in Majid) add that teaching strategy is a

learning process that should be done by teacher and students in order that learning objective

can be achieved effectively and efficiently. Kozma in Sanjaya (2007) supports the theory of

teaching strategy that is an activity that can be chosen, that can give facility to students to

achieve the certain learning objective. Gerlach and Ely (cited in Harmuni, 2013: 2) explain

that teaching strategies is chosen ways to deliver the lesson material in certain learning

environment. While Dick and Carey (1994) tell that teaching strategies contain of all element

of learning material and procedure or step of learning process that is used by teacher to help

students to achieve certain learning objective. According to Cropper (1998) in Harmuni

(2013: 3) teaching strategies is the selection of certain exercise which appropriate with

learning objective that will be achieved.

The Elements of Teaching Strategy

Dick and Carey (2005) in Yamin (2013: 5), teaching strategies has common

elements and procedures that will be used together to produce certain learning outcome instudents. There are five elements of teaching strategies: First, pre-instructional or

introduction learning activity, it is as a part of a learning system hold an important role in

whole (Sunhaji: 2008). Pre-instructional activity that is delivered attractively will improve

students motivation to study. This activity can be done by explaining the particular learning

objective expected to be achieved by all students in the end of the teaching learning process,

and doing an apperception, it is an activity that connects between previous knowledge with

new knowledge that will be studied. Second, explaining lesson material, considered as one of


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the most important activities in the teaching learning process, whereas this part is only one of

the elements of teaching strategies (Sunhaji: 2008). This activity will be meaningless when

there is not any interesting pre-instructional activity or teacher cannot motivate students in

learning activity. Third, students participation or students active learning (SAL) which

means is the learning process will be more successful if the students actively do an exercise

directly and relevant to the purpose (Dick and Carey, 1987 cited in Sunhaji, 2008). There aresome important things that relate to students participation: (a) Exercise and practice should

be done after students given the information about knowledge, behavior, or certain skill, and

(b) the teacher gives feedback as soon as the students show their learning outcome. Fourth,

evaluation is the systematic process of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting information to

determine the extent to which pupils are achieving instructional objectives (Ground and Linn,

1990). A series of tests used by teacher to find out whether the purpose of learning objectives

has been achieved and whether a knowledge attitude and skill has really owned by students.

They often asked their students to do discussion activity in a group or with their desk mate.

The teacher also asked students to ask question related to the topic they are discussed. In

addition, the teacher also gave their students a chance to share their idea or opinion of the

material in teaching learning process. By sharing the idea or opinion, students could find the

other alternative think about the topic that they discussed. After they discussed the topic with

their friend, they presented their discussion result in front of the class. It was done in order to

make the other students who were in the different group know other group answer and they

could give an argument or compare it to their own answer. Then, teacher would give resume

from the answer of all of group. The students would think again about what they have already

got from the teaching learning process. Fifth, follow-up activity is needed by teacher to notice

students mastery level. This activity is to optimize students learning outcome. Following-up

activity can be done through (a) giving homework, (b) discuss again the lesson material that

has not been mastered by students, (c) read the material from other source, (d) give

motivation or tutoring, and (e) inform the topics that will be discussed next meeting.

The Components of Teaching Strategy

As Harmuni (2013: 11) said that the components of teaching strategy consist of ten

components. First, teacher is a learning doer, so in this case teacher is an important factor.

Teacher component cannot be manipulated or engineered by others component, but teacher

can manipulate or engineer other component to be varied. Teachers aim to manipulate is to

build students environment in order to appropriate with the environment that is expected

from students learning process, that eventually students get learning outcomes as expected.

Second, students are the component that does the learning activity to develop skill potential

become real to achieve learning purpose. Third,purpose is the basis that used as a foundationto determine the teaching strategy, material, media, and evaluation. In teaching strategy,

deciding the purpose is the first component to be chosen by teacher, because learning purpose

is a target that will be achieved in teaching activity. Fourth, learning material is a medium to

achieve learning purpose of material arranged systematically and dynamic in accordance with

the aim of purpose and science development and society demand. Fifth, learning activity is

needed to determine teaching strategy which learning activity is appropriate with standard of

learning process thus learning purpose can be achieved optimally. Sixth, method is a way that


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is used to achieve the learning purpose that has been set. Determining the method that will be

used by teacher in teaching learning process will very determine whether the learning is

success. Seventh, instrument that is used in teaching learning process is a thing that can be

used to achieve learning purpose. In teaching learning process, instrument has function as

complement.Eight, learning source is a thing that can be used as a place or referral where the

learning material can be obtained. Ninth, evaluation is a component that functions to knowwhether the set purpose has been achieved or not. Evaluation can be function as a feedback to

improvement strategy that has been set. Tenth, situation and environment influence to teacher

in determining teaching strategy. Environment here means situation and physical condition

(such as climate, school, school place, etc), and human relationship, like relationship with

friends, students, and other people.

Types of Teaching Strategies

Based on Majid (2013: 11) and Hamruni (2013: 8) teaching strategies can be

classified into five categories, they are:

1. Direct teaching strategy is a strategy that is directed by teacher and it is often used by

teacher in teaching material to students. Lectures methods, didactic question, explicit

teaching, practice and exercise, and demonstration are included in direct teaching

strategy. The advantages of this strategy are easy to plan and easy to use, but this strategy

has a major weakness in developing capabilities, processes, and attitudes required for

critical thinking and interpersonal relationship as well as study in groups.

2. Indirect teaching strategy is also called as inquiry, inductive, problem solving, decision-

making and discovery. The teachers role shifts from a lecturer to a facilitator. Teacher

manages the learning environment and gives students opportunity to engage in learning

activity. The advantages of this strategy are encouraging students interest and curiosity,

creating alternative and problem solving, encouraging creativity and developing

interpersonal and others skill, students have better understanding of the material, and

expressing understanding of the material. Meanwhile, the weaknesses of this strategy are

it takes a long time and learning outcomes are difficult to predict.

3. Interactive teaching strategy emphasizes in discussion and sharing between students.

Those give opportunity to students to react towards other students or teachers idea,

experience, approach, and knowledge to build thinking and feeling alternatively. The

strengths of this strategy are students can learn from his teacher and his friends to build

social skill and other skills, and organized thinking and build a rational argument.

However, this strategy really depend on teachers skill in arrange and develop group

dynamics.

4. Experiential learning is oriented in inductive activity, student-centered, and activity-based. Improving students participation, improving students critical character, and

improving students analysis are the strengths of this strategy. Meanwhile, the

weaknesses of this strategy are the emphasis only on the process. There are some kinds

of experiential teaching strategy: (a) Case method is learning activity that discusses a real

case, or reconstructed case which have certain principle of a problem, (b) Problem-based

learning is learning activity which has background that human as a life being always

have problem to be solved, and (c) games, simulation, and role play.


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5. Independent teaching strategy is a strategy which purpose to develop individual

initiative, independency, and self-improvement. The strength from this strategy is to

make independent and responsible students. Moreover, the weakness of this strategy is

this strategy cannot be applied with immature students.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGYThis research used descriptive qualitative in this research. Qualitative research is to

describe the real phenomenon either a natural or unreal phenomenon. This research

investigates form, activities, characteristics, alteration, correlation, similarity, and difference

between a phenomenon and other phenomenon (Sukmadinata, 2010: 74).

This research was conducted in SMK Negeri 1 Purwokerto, SMK Negeri 2

Purwokerto, and SMK Negeri 3 Purwokerto. The participant of this research was five

teachers from three schools as the main participant and 140 students as the respondent of

questionnaire. This research conducted two interviews with different purposes to the teacher

before and after teaching learning process, the first interview conducted to find out teachers

basic knowledge of what teaching strategy they used while the second interview was to

clarify the result of first interview and observation. This research also used check list to get

data from teacher by observing teaching learning process in the classroom to find out what

teaching strategy that is used by teachers and also distributed questionnaire to get the data

from the students to support the result of interview and observation.

RESULT

The results of data analysis were obtained from interviews, observations, and

questionnaire. Indeed, the main data of teachers teaching strategies were collected through

observation, while interview and questionnaire were collected to support the main data.

1. Direct Teaching Strategy

Five teachers who were observed used direct teaching strategy in teaching

English. They said that they used direct teaching strategy because High School students

still need teacher explanation about the learning material that will be taught. They

explained the learning material that would be taught that day to their students. They

always gave question to their students related to the material. It was done to know

whether their students already knew about the material or not. Besides, sometimes

teacher asked their students to do exercise related to the material. Four of five teachers

asked their students to do exercises in order that the students are more understand about

the material that has taught. Moreover, the teachers who were observed rarely guided

their students to understand the material through a dialogue or text and connected it with

the daily life. They usually just guided their student without connecting it with the dailylife. On the other hand, they were seldom practice a dialogue or demonstrate an activity

that related to the material before ask the students to practice. They just did it if the

learning material covers speaking skill or if the material was taught using games.

2. Indirect Teaching strategy

Three from five teacher used indirect teaching strategy in teaching English. They

said they sometimes used indirect teaching strategy because there were some students

who were active in teaching learning, other students sometimes became passive when the


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teacher taught use this strategy, and also they looked what learning material that will be

taught. From the observation, three of five teachers sometimes gave teaser question to

their students. Teaser question was given by teacher to emerge students idea about the

material that was taught. They didnt always give teaser question to their students in each

learning material that was taught. From three times observations, each of them gave a

teaser question once. Besides, they are sometimes role as a facilitator in teachinglearning process; they are always role as an informant in teaching learning process.

However, they were very rarely in asking their students to find a problem from the topic

that have taught, either in asking their students to find the solution from the problem.

3. Interactive Teaching Strategy

Four from five teachers often used interactive teaching strategy in English

classroom because the students could share their idea with their friend through discussion

activity. Besides the students could share their idea, they could also learn to respect other

people when talking and learn how to find the best solution by discussing with their

friend. They often asked their students to do discussion activity in a group or with their

desk mate. The teacher also asked students to ask question related to the topic they are

discussed. In addition, the teacher also gave their students a chance to share their idea or

opinion of the material in teaching learning process. By sharing the idea or opinion,

students could find the other alternative think about the topic that they discussed. After

they discussed the topic with their friend, they presented their discussion result in front

of the class. It was done in order to make the other students who were in the different

group know other group answer and they could give an argument or compare it to their

own answer. Then, teacher would give resume from the answer of all of group. The

students would think again about what they have already got from the teaching learning

process.

4. Experiential Teaching Strategy

Three from five teachers sometimes used experiential teaching strategy in English

classroom because the students more remember the learning material from the activity

that they have done of the learning material that have taught. There are three kinds of

experiential teaching strategy: First, Case Method. In case method, teacher gave students

a case in form of a text. The students were asked to make a group to find the solution

towards the case. The students could ask when they found some difficulties in discuss the

case. After the students finished discuss, they present they result in front of the class by

typing their answer in their teachers laptop which connected with projector. Second,

Problem-based Learning. In problem-based learning, the teacher would decide the

problem from the learning material that was taught. Then, the teacher asked the students

to find out the information that related to the problem. The students found out thesolution of the problem and make the limitation of the solution. It is done to find the best

solution from the problem. Third, games, simulation, and role play. These three kinds of

activity, games, simulation, and role play, were the activities that can make the students

fun in teaching learning process. From three times observation, most of the teachers who

were observed, were did role play activity. They asked their students to make a role play

based on the learning material that taught and perform it in front of the class. The teacher

gave feedback, like the correct pronunciation or their grammar.


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5. Independent Teaching Strategy

The entire teacher said that they never used independent teaching strategy in

teaching English because the students still could not study alone without their teacher.

They could not understand about the material without their teachers deeply explanation

about the material.

DISCUSSION

There are some kinds of teaching strategy based on the theory: direct teaching

strategy, indirect teaching strategy, interactive teaching strategy, experiential teaching

strategy, and independent teaching strategy. Some findings were revealed from the result of

interview, observation data, and questionnaire to investigate the teachers teaching strategy in

English classroom.

From the interview session, it revealed that the teachers often used direct teaching

strategy and interactive teaching strategy. They used direct teaching strategy because the

students still need their teachers guidance in understanding the learning material. The

teacher still explained the learning material clearly to their students in order to make the

students understand about the material. While, by using interactive teaching strategy students

were more participative in teaching learning process. The students could share their idea to

their friends. They were also critical in asking questions when they found difficulties in

comprehending the material.

Fromthe observation, it showed that the teachers often used direct teaching strategy

and interactive teaching strategy. The teachers explained the learning material that they

would be taught to their students that day. Besides explaining the learning material, they also

gave some questions related to the material to the students. It was done in order to make their

students active in teaching learning process. In addition, teachers also asked their students to

do an exercise related to material. It was given to make the students more understand to the

learning material that have taught. Sometimes, the teacher guided their students to understand

the learning material by giving attention to dialogue or text and connect it to the daily life. By

explaining the material and connecting it to the daily life, the students were easily to

remember the learning material. The teachers also demonstrated or practiced first the activity

that would be done by students. It was done to make the students understand clearly about

what activity that they would do. It is stressed by Majid (2013: 73) that the center of direct

teaching strategy is teacher. Teacher should explains the learning material, guiding the

students activity, and test the students skill through exercises under teachers guiding. Also,

the teacher often asked their students to do discussion activity in a group or with their desk

mate. By asking the students to do discussion activity, the teacher gave them a chance to

share their idea or opinion of the topic that they were discussed. It is stressed by Seaman andFellenz (1998) in Majid (2013: 83) that discussion and sharing provide learners with

opportunities to react to the ideas, experience, insight, and knowledge of the teacher or of

peer learners and to generate alternative ways of thinking and feeling. They also asked their

students to ask question related to the topic that they are discussed if the students find

difficulty. Moreover, the students were given a chance to come in front the class to present

their discussion result. The teacher would give resume of the presentation so the students

could know the entire result of their discussion.


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Based onthe questionnaire result, 97.59% respondents said their teacher often use

direct teaching strategy in teaching English. 69.13% said that their teacher often use indirect

teaching strategy. Also, 77.44% respondents said that their teacher often used interactive

teaching strategy in English classroom. 53.34% respondents said that their teacher often used

experiential teaching strategy. While, 45.45% respondents said that their teacher sometimes

used independent teaching strategy in teaching English. From the result, it showed that directteaching strategy and interactive teaching strategy were the strategy that commonly used by

the teacher in English classroom.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

Based on the result, it shown that the teachers investigated use five types of teaching

strategies; they are direct teaching strategy, indirect teaching strategy, interactive teaching

strategy, experiential teaching strategy, and independent teaching strategy. Among five

strategies, direct teaching strategy and interactive teaching strategy are commonly used by all

teachers. They usually explain the material and ask the students to complete exercises to

deepen their comprehension. The teachers also ask the students to have discussion activity

with their friend to improve their critical thinking by discussing the topic.

Knowing the result of this research, it is revealed that there are two kinds of

teachers teaching strategies which frequently used by the teachers, those are direct teaching

strategy and interactive teaching strategy. Through applying appropriate teaching strategies in

English classroom, it can improve students participation of the learning process and it can

achieve the optimum result for students. Therefore, applying appropriate teaching strategies

is considered important for all teachers. If the teachers do not apply appropriate teaching

strategy, it causes the students participation decrease in teaching learning process.

Furthermore, the teacher can improve their strategy in teaching English, thus teacher can

awaken and motivate students involvement and participation towards English lesson and

create more interactive and effective learning atmosphere in achieving the learning objective.

On the other hand, the implementation of appropriate teaching strategy will help the

students in improving their learning achievement. This achievement can be gained through a

good learning process where there is appropriate teaching strategy.

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Documents

Journal Teachers' Teaching Strategies in English Classroom