Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction
activity is dealing with a passive class. A passive class is defined when students are
unresponsive and avoid interacting with the teacher. It happens because the teacher
still dominantly controls the in-class activity. This problem occurs when a teacher
conducts a teacher-class dialog, such as; asking some questions to the class as a whole
conversation with their mates. In other word, this condition can be a frustrating
experience for the teachers in conducting an in-class activity. Yet, it is a big challenge
for the teachers to find out the best solution of this problem. One of the best way is by
interaction is the mutual relationship or action when there is feedback through the
communication activity. It means, there is response from the second person (students)
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In order to gain that interaction, the teacher should apply some activities
communicatively. For example, the teacher gives a question to the class as a whole or
to the students individually. The student should try to find the answer by asking
others. This activity is aimed to customize them to be more active and to train them to
pronounce English words accurately and fluently. Since the purposes of this activity
are for both accuracy and fluency or for the combination of the two.
As the result, they do not response voluntarily to the teacher, when the teacher
gives them some very simple-drilled question related to daily activities, such as;
‘What time do you wake up?’, ‘What do you do in the morning?’, etc. In the other
side, the students also never ask a single question to the teacher. They are reluctant to
clarify the instructions or questions given by the teacher, even, by using their mother
good interaction between teacher and students in the classroom. It then, reveals a
in the classroom?’
The purpose of this study is to find the answer of the problem above in which
the researcher tries to apply drill activities meaningfully (meaningful drill) to improve
strategy which promotes the acquisition of both form and meaning through repetitive
practices. While practicing this technique, the researcher comes closer to the students
one by one and asks one question, e.g. ‘What do you like?’ or What do you want?’.
Then, the researcher orders them to ask the same question to their mates.
1.4 Assumption
Based on the phenomena above, the researcher finally draws assumption that
the students need or like a new or different situation better than just make a note or
to the students and involve them directly to the in-class activities (through drilling
activities), they will be more eagerly to join or participate actively in every in-class
activities. In short, the teacher-student interaction will be improved so that the class
The result of this research project is aimed to improve the English teaching
methods in Elementary School. Thus, it will give good progress to both teachers and
students. It is also expected to give knowledge and information to the researcher and
the readers. It is the fact that there is no certain teaching methods for all class
situation, because, the condition of a certain class may be different from others. Lewis
& Hill, (1981) stated that the relevant method for a certain class situation might be not
relevant for others. It is because each of class has their own characteristics.
feeling to their students. The researcher also hopes the result of this research will be
communicate using English simply. However, it is just for the introduction to the
There are some key terms which are necessary to define to make this
First, the word interaction is defined as the action to have an effect or response on
each other. It is also supported by Wubbels, (1997), Goh & Wong, ( 1998).
Second, Teacher-student Interaction means the responsive action from both teacher
and students to have a effect or feed back on each other Wubbels, (1997), Goh &
Wong, (1998). In the next time, there was also similar statement by Wubbels,
Brekelmans & Hoomayers (1991). In the previous time, Creton, also stated their
assumptions have been expressed mainly by Brooks (1960) and Rivers (1964).
Fourth, Drill deals with the process of training thoroughly by means of regularly
(Martin, 1999). Furthermore, Bush (1999), Patten (1993, 1996), and Tice (2002),
stated that drilling is a technique which is dealing with a key feature of audio lingual
particular language which promotes the acquisition of language in both forms and
Chapter II
It is because the influence of globalization era has immediately required the people of
the country to participate actively. In this side, communication takes very important
education aspect. Just like in our country, some linguists and English teachers have
Moreover, English teaching is the method of teaching English that is designed and
purposed to give knowledge about English language to the students or language
learners. In addition, they can use it in the real communication activities in real
some theories related to the practical activities but also the practice itself. The more
we practice or use it in our daily activities the more we will easily master it. In short,
English teaching should concern about both the theory and the practice of it (Lewis
Since our government has launched the new concept of our national
curriculum that regulated English as one of local content for Elementary School
first foreign language which is very important and must be taught to gain and improve
as well as to develop science, technology, art and culture, and to create good
Elementary school level is one of school level that consists of six to eleven years old
students whom are taught about some basic knowledge. This level is also considered
as Young Learners level. The reason stating that English teaching is better given in
elementary school level, because, the students of that age get more easily learn about
interaction in the classroom and it can, finally, improve their achievement in English
subject. So that the graduates of Elementary school will, at least, be ready to continue
Finally, they will be ready to participate actively in the real situation of their
lives, especially, in the global trade commerce. If they have already known or got
familiar with English, then, they will get more easily study about it in the next levels
of education.
dealing with a passive class. It happens when students are passive or unresponsive and
avoid interacting with the teacher. It is also because the teacher still dominantly
controls the in-class activity. This problem arises when a teacher conducts a teacher-
class dialogue or short conversation, such as; asking some questions to the class as a
private conversation with their mates. In short, this condition can be a frustrating
experience for the teachers in conducting the in-class activity. Yet, it is a big
challenge for the teachers to solve this problem by conducting an action research.
feedback in both oral and gestures or actions during the in-class activity (Wubbels,
Fishers, Rickards, Faser & Goh & Wong, 1997, 1998). Furthermore, the word
(Faersch & Kasper, 1983; Pica 1987), turn taking patterns (Pica & Doughty, 1987),
For this reason, many researchers as Bachman, 1990; Breen and Candlin, 1980;
Brown and Yule, 1983; Brumfit, 1980; Canale and Swain, 1979, 1980; Candlin, 1976;
Rivers, 1981, 1987; Savignon, 1972; Walkins, 1972; put their theories based on their
ideas on the work of such sociolinguistics pioneers as Hymes (1972, 1992) had
These researchers emphasized their opinion that foreign language students are
required to practice in order to develop their communicative abilities, so that they can
express themselves appropriately in the real situation. It is also stated by Haris, (1963)
that the ability to communicate with others by means of verbal symbol is the most
human characteristics.
Many researchers have claimed that language instruction requires the development of
communication (Kramsch, 1986) this theory is also stated by Rivers, 1987 and Ellis,
1988). Kramsch (1986) also claims that language interaction requires the development
discourse and to build interactional competence in the classroom. The first step is to
work on teacher-student oriented interaction, during which the students practice the
target language, English, with their teacher as a model and partner of conversation.
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The second step is partner centered interaction, during which students learn to
negotiate meaning with partners in the classroom as well as how to generate meaning.
And the third step is students practice ways to interact without violating social and
the role of interaction in general, and meaning negotiation in particular, with respect
can accomplish a great deal for SLA by helping learners make input comprehensible
or meaningful and modify their own output, and by providing opportunities for them
to access second language (L2) or Foreign language, form and meaning. Therefore, it
environment in which learner can associate with each other in the target language and
way that draw conclusion about the consequences of particular types of interactions
on language acquisition (Faersch and Kasper, 1983;pica 1987). The diagram below
summarizes Long’s interaction hypothesis, and shows its relationship with Krashen’s
input hypothesis.
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Diagram 1
(A)
Meaningful or
Comprehensible input
teaching-learning activity.
questions to the students. It is hoped that the students will, first, understand the A part
(input), and next, able to give response to the teacher’s instructions or questions using
verbal communication.
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prepare the feedback from their own comprehension. In this process, the teacher may
help them by using such simple gestures or any other media just to make the students
Moreover, the teacher does such modification to the conversation process as;
asks the students to practice the same activity (a two way communication) as the
teacher did before, in couples or groups of three, four, and so on. The response or
feedback on E, explains that the teacher repeats the same activity with giving such
changes to the type of the instructions or questions. The last, if the E part works quite
well, meaning that the students are able to give response or feedback to the teacher’s
instructions or questions, it can be concluded that the interaction between teacher and
students is in progress.
Notes; the circle on diagram 1 above, signs or indicates interaction through teaching-
learning process. While the arrow ( ) indicates the process of interaction in each
part of activities.
Furthermore, Long and Sato (1983) propose a taxonomy of question types
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2. Clarification request : “ What do you mean?”
“ I don’t understand”
“ What?”
Long calls question types 1 to 3 in the taxonomy echoic i.e. they are prompted
by the previous utterance, and thus are central to the negotiation of meaning.
Types 4 to 7 are called epistemic, meaning that they are designed to elicit
information. The interactionists hypothesis predict that the more the learner
engages in negotiation of meaning (with the teacher or with other learners) the
more productive this will be in terms of acquisition.
teacher’s instructions if they understand the meaning or what the teacher said. And,
the class situation will be more interactive. It is because there will be a two way
communication.
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(1960) and Rivers (1964) are: (1) Foreign language learning is a process whose final
outcome is the formation of habits; (2) The learning of language skills is more
effective when the oral aspects are presented before the written ones; (3) If language
(4) The meanings of the words of a foreign language can be learned only in their
also the result of giving possibility to the students to answer the questions correctly,
and that positive reinforcement from the teacher greatly enhances learning by the
many of the principles and procedures of the Direct Method, in part as a reaction to
appropriately in the classroom, it can be such a great value to our learners. The word
provided by the teacher, or a tape or another student, and repeating what is heard.
either forms or meanings (Martin, 1999). Bush (1999), along with Van Patten (1993,
1996), and Tice (1997) stated that drilling is a technique which is dealing with a key
repetition or restricted response drills they can be trained into automatic responses to
stimuli: if we get our students to answer the same question with the same answer ten
times in classroom, for example, then there is a fair chance that they will do the same
outside the classroom. The language used in drills is, therefore, usually very tightly
1994).
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meanings or both of them (Martin, 1999), (Bush 1999), this theory is also stated by
about the sentence patterns (forms) but also, at least, to make them understand about
the meaning of the utterances they said. Lyster & Ranta, 1997 stated that in particular,
language learners are rarely pushed through negotiation of meaning. Kramsch (1986),
suggests that communication must include the ability to express, interpret and
negotiate meanings.
simple forms, it is better to apply meaningful drill activities in the classroom. With
meaningful drill, the students are not only supplied with the response but also give
them the information with which to create the new one. In the practice of repetition or
substitution drill, students only can make response without really understanding the
meaning of the sentences or how to response it based on their own perception. With
meaningful drill, the students need to know what is being said. For example;
T : ‘Why’
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Doff (1988) had his statement; A drill can be made communicative
(meaningful) if the teacher asks questions to the students to which they do not know
the answer easily. Meaning that, the drill is not communicative (meaningful) if the
teacher just asks, for example, ‘What color is your dress?’, because they can directly
It will be different if the teacher asks them; ‘What do you like to eat/drink?’ or
‘What do you usually do in the morning?’ or ‘What did you go last week?’ these
questions make the students think more seriously and try to dig or explore their
memory to find the answer. Those kinds of questions may also distinguish the answer
addition, dialogs are natural extensions of drills. It is not too difficult to practice the
drill in a dialog, because usually, the dialog for elementary level is made in short form
with simple pattern of sentences. Once a dialog has been memorized by the students,
it offers possibilities for creativity as long as they understand the meaning. Thus,
using meaningful drill will help the students not only to memorize and practice the
Based on the concept above, we may conclude that, the more we drill the
students meaningfully, the more chance it improves their attention to the teachers’
instructions, so that it can improve the interaction between teacher and students.
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The teacher gives drilling materials (it could be in terms of pictures or written form of
T: Ok students, what’s this? Or What picture is it? (the teacher shows a picture;
S: A doctor
S: doctor.
T: Very good.
S: …..
T: injection. What…
S: injection
S: patient
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2. By written form
(The materials are the same as in A, but, in this part, they are performed in written
form). The teacher writes those words one by one on the black board and drill
them in turns.
T: Ok students, repeat after me! (while appointing the words on the black
board). ‘a doctor’.
S: doctor.
T: A doctor.
S: A doctor
S: inject
T: injects
S: injects
S: patient
T: A patient
S: a patient
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S: a doctor-injects-a patient.
T: very nice. Ok, now, I want to ask you. What does a doctor do?
T: A doctor…..
S: A doctor-injects-a patient.
S: …..
T: because……
S: …..
T: because he is…
S: ‘sakit’
S: …
S: sick
S: because he is sick.
T: very good.
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These two styles (A&B) can be combined or applied in a time. During the
drilling process, the students possibly do not know the meaning of a certain word or
phrase. In this case, the teacher may tell them the meaning, but, only once (it could be
in the beginning or the end of the drilling process). However, it is done after giving
such gestures, pictures, etc., but still do not bring sicnificant changes to their
understanding.
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Chapter III
Methodology
process that allows for inquiry and discussion as components of the “research.” Often,
research designs dealing with an effort to improve one specific point in a teacher’s
own classroom. In short, action research is called for when the research literature does
not provide the teacher or administrator with sufficient basis for making an important
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which is being researched is the real problem. Second, this kind of research is
conducted to investigate the local problem occurs in the local setting. Third, it
New step
Step 3
Step 5 Step 3
Step 5 Step 4
Step 4
There are at least five steps that are usually covered in conducting an Action
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action research process, first of all, the researcher needs to identify the focus
(problem), determine the area of teaching and learning that is intended to
explore. The focus should be on an area of which the researcher has some
control and wants to change or improved. The researcher should describe the
the questions that need to be answered. In this research project, for example, the
in the classroom. The researcher identifies that the major factor causing
students’ passiveness is because they don’t know about the meaning of every
Step 2 is planning for action. In this step, the researcher should draw or
determine what strategy that will be applied to answer the question. In this case,
the researcher applies meaningful-drill through the audio lingual method. The
researcher assumes that by applying meaningful-drill the students will not only
able to say English words, phrases, or sentences but also understand about their
meaning. Next, the students will understand about the teacher’s instructions and
answer the questions. Finally, the interaction among the teacher and the students
will be improved. Step 3 is, collecting data. This step describes about what,
when, where, why and how the researcher collects the data to support the
analysis.
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The data must be real. In this research project, the researcher uses diary
journal and a teacher partner to analyze and give such suggestion or critics to
analyzing them whether they are the real and valid ones, whether the strategy
applied has worked or given such progress to answer the question or problem. It
is also important to explain about what kind of pattern used to analyze the data.
Step 5 is planning for future action. The next step is, planning the next
Those five steps are applied as many as they are needed until there is significant
changes occur.
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Because of limited time, cost and also facility belongs to the school where this
research project is conducted, the researcher only applies those five steps twice
male students and five female students. Those number are the total of the students’
number in that class. It means that those are the total of the population of this research
project.
It is the fact that because the number of this research samples are absolutely
the same as the population, it can be considered that the population of this research is
Sampling Population. Furthermore, when the number of the sample is the same as the
3.3. Instrument
The instruments used by the researcher in this research project to collect some
data which are necessary to support this research are interview, diary journal and
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through the categorization of activity types and the analysis of patterns of interaction.
In achieving this goal, the researcher employs primary data collection methods
including qualitative interview involving the teacher and the students (Devault, 1990;
Holstein & Gubrium, 1995), and field notes on direct observation that permitted an
insiders’ view (Agar, 1980). In order to collect the data, the researcher applies several
steps which are considered as follows; First, the researcher gives questionnaire to the
Second, based on the result of the questionnaire, the researcher finds that the
passiveness is because they do not know the meaning of English words. So, the
researcher applies meaningful drill to help them to understand the lesson. Third, when
applying meaningful drill, the researcher records all activities into a diary journal or
study. Fourth, the researcher also involves a teacher partner or assistant to help him
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similar materials to the drilled ones, but in terms of oral. The last step is, discuss with
the partner or assistance to get some suggested ideas. Because of limited facility in
that school and expensive cost, it is impossible to use such a video taping, audio
taping to record all the activities. However, it does not significantly influence the
validity of the data. In addition, it is also because the researcher involves a teacher-
and to get valid conclusion, data analysis is necessarily needed. Data analysis is aimed
to compare the condition before being given treatment with the condition after being
given treatment. So that, it will finally, get obvious and significant impacts or
indicators adapted from Long’s interaction theory. The data are based on observation,
recording, interview, diary journal, and partner’s notes. With this data, the researcher
notes the opportunities that provide or hinder students’ opportunities for learning
Qualitative Action Research which is defined as one type of action research designs
particular classroom using empirical measurement (Richards, Platt & Platt, 1992).
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