Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Competency Based Language Teaching by Suryani

CBLT is a method that is used by teacher that insists the teacher to use Syllabus as a guide of the teacher to teach students. This method consists of the theory of learning language so that this theory is considered can improve students ability to master foreign language. The theory of language here is students learn naturally through communication between one to another.

In this method, Syllabus is very important, so syllabus must make students can use language instead of the knowledge of language. It means, the important pint is students can communicate or can speak and understand what has been spoken by others instead of they know the rule/knowledge of the language. To build this method in classroom, there are four materials that can be used by teacher namely sample text, assessment task, reading competencies and writing competencies.

The role of teacher in this method is to make a suitable syllabus to students in order to students can get a true understanding about the material. After that, teacher also must give a very clear explanation. In giving task, teacher must give a clear order and if students make mistake, teacher must not punish them. Teacher must create a very welcome situation of the class in order to students can study comfort.

On the other hand, students also have their own role in class. Students must be active in class. They must perform skills that have been taught by teacher. They also have to stay in actual program until their abilities improve.

This method is presented by Suryani. Actually, the materials of her power point is almost completed but she seemed not well prepared and did not master her topic. I can say that because she did not explain the material clearly. After that, she could not control the condition of the class so that the class was very noise and that maybe made she cried. I personally think, that she did not need to cry, one she need is to master the material so that she can control the condition of the class. 

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Thursday, May 15, 2014

Cooperative Language Learning by Maulina

Cooperative Language Learning can be defined as a teaching method that divides students to some groups. This is done with the aim to develop students’ ability to work together. This method can be applied to all kinds of assignments and curricula for all ages of students.

The class starts from select the assignments correctly. Subsequently, teacher determine the skill used to accomplish it. Here, teacher is the facilitator and supporter of learning process.

There are three important things must notice in this method namely grouping, students’ learning motivation and class managing.

CLL method is one of familiar method whether for teacher or students so that can be easily understood. I personally think, the presenter’s explanation about this method is good and can be understood moreover she made a simulation about how to divide students to some group. This surely helped the audience to understand the method easily because the audience became participants of the presentation and can feel directly the atmosphere of CLL class.

However, there are some lacks of this presentation. Previously, another student has explained about Collaborative Learning, it was explained that students are divided to some groups as well. I personally think, the presenter must give clear differences between these methods. Besides that, the explanation performed in all Indonesian.

Oral Approach by Marda Ely Shinta

Oral Approach is a teaching language method that is applied by pronounce directly the words or sentences in target language and students follow the words or sentences that have been pronounced. So, the purpose of this method is students can know the meaning of a word of sentence without teacher utters the meaning. Besides through pronouncing, teacher also can point the thing or picture so that students can know the meaning of the thing without teacher tells it directly.

The purposes of this method are to introduce foreign language and to increase students ability in pronunciation, speaking and reading.

There are six characteristic of Oral Approach. First, Spoken language, because because oral approach expects to introduce students to foreign/target language directly by pronouncing the sentences in dialog. Second, Target Language, the language that the students are expected to master. Then, Vocabulary selection procedure, the vocabulary must be selected from the easier to harder. Subsequently, Closely grade grammar, the grammar is also must be selected from the easier to harder but it must be presented in sentences not by learning it especially.  An the last, writing and reading introduce. This method presents a structural reading and writing ability. They are systematically arranged, not learned as Direct Method does.

The advantages of this method is suitable to introduce foreign language to students. Then, students can directly speaking in target language without risk, they freely make mistake. This method is also accessible for teacher because it does not insist much energy and inexpensive one.

However, this method is also not free of lacks. The class will be boring because students only follow what teacher say repeatedly, this method is considered not effective because not all students can easily know the meaning of words or the grammar structure without directly explanation from teacher.

In general, the presenter’s explanation about this method is good and can be understood. I personally can imagine how this method is applied even though this is a new method for me. Besides that, the presenter also gave the example of how this  method is applied. It really helped the audience to understand the method moreover the presenter can 50% explained the material in English with a good pronunciation. The material that presenter presented are completed. It can be seen by the amount of presenter’s slides, 20 slides.

But, I personally suggest the presenter to notice some things. The eyes direction of presenter was only to one direction it made another students from another sides are denied. Besides that, the time that presenter needed to finish her presentation was very long. It surely made audience feel bored. It must be noticed by presenter later, if she need a very long time to finish her presentation, she must enter some creative and attractive presentation in the middle to gain audience’s concern about the presentation. It must be also noticed, that the presenter did not include the role of audience in her presentation, so she as if only presented it by and for herself except in the small game at the last presentation. Even if the presenter could not master the class and control the time, but the presentation is good and can be understood easily.

Total Physical Response and Story Telling by Tri Astuti

TPR is an innovative method that is used to students can easily learn foreign language. This method expects students can demonstrate their understanding about the material through verbal commands. Here, teacher gives students some verbal commands and students give their response.

There are five principles of this method. First, there is no pressure for students to speak, because students are expected to speak spontaneously, not by forcing them to speak. Then, the time is spent on listening skill. After that, this method develops students’ peaking skill and the last, the class condition is comfort and students can be relaxed to study.

Teacher can use some materials in applying this method such as picture, furniture, word chart and book. The teacher can starts this method by pointing a thing such as a door then asking “open the door” and the students do what the teacher commanded.

The next method that was presented by Tri Astuti is Story Telling. This is also a very innovative, imaginative and fun method moreover to be applied to children. The class starts by teacher tells a story using words or sentences in target language but one thing that teacher must notice, the way to convey the story must be attractive. Teacher can use voice imitation (vocalization), gestures and physical movements. All this can make provoke students to imagine the story. This method expects, after imagining the story, the students can get new vocabulary and the meaning in one time.

The explanation of the presenter is good and can be easily understood at least I personally can imagine how these method are applied to the class. But the presenter’s lack in only in language use, she almost used 100% Indonesian except while reading the presentation. 

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Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Problem Based Learning by Nur Afni

PBL is a teaching method which uses “problem” as a media in teaching. The students are given some problem and they must solve them. From the problem appears teacher can be identified students’ need in learning so that the learning process can be maximal and get the target.

There are three characteristic of PBL namely Small Group, Problem Based and Self-Directed. In small group, students are encouraged to be not afraid and work together with teacher as the facillitator. Students’ feedback influence the process of learning. In problem based, the problem is the real problem and students are not emphasize to solve but through the problem, it is expected teacher can know students’ lack.

I personally still do not understand this method except what I have written above because this method is not familiar for me moreover the presenter only read her power point without giving any explanation used spoken language, whereas the material is almost completed. Besides that, presenter also did not give the simulation so that it was hard to audience to imagine how this method applied in class.

Direct Method by Hayatun Riza

Direct method is a language teaching method by directly apply foreign language in class and negate the use of native language. In this method, grammar lesson and translation must be avoided because the most important is students and teacher can directly communicate in foreign language. They are expected to master the grammar from practice not from learn it specifically.  So, students are expected to master foreign language as same as they master mother tongue, without learning it first. This way that Direct Method try to apply.

However, apparently, this is a wrong view because, foreign language cannot be learned with the same way as mother tongue. Mother tongue is a language that students use from they were still babies, they use it to communicate everyday in theri daily life and all of people around them use that language too. It surely different from foreign language. Foreign language is only spoken by limited people in their life.

The presenter presented her presentation 50% English but her English is really hard to understand. It is because she still looked very hard to arrange sentences in English so the audience cannot catched what her intend easily. The presenter’ voice was so slow and as if she was doubt so she cannot control the condition of this class.

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Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Blended Learning and Role Playing by Syahyar Ridhana Putra

Blended Learning is a teaching method which combines study in classroom and internet so that the result is  anew method where the process of learning that should be apply in the classroom where teacher and students meet changed to a learning process where both teacher and students can be everywhere but they meet through internet.  This method is a new method and maybe not familiar with Indonesian teachers.

Although the system of the learning process does not insist teacher and students meet directly in the same place, but they still also can meet by using internet so that both teacher and students can freely determine place and time to study. The another advantages of this method is the students can memorize the material longer because the materials are given by creative way. Besides that, students become more attractive to study because internet is an interesting thing for students.

The presenter should benefit audience’s curiosity towards this method which make internet as the media to study. Yet, in fact, the presenter explained the material very limited, only conveyed the definition and the advantages. Whereas, I personally think that there are still may aspects that the presenter must explain such as teacher and students’ role, rules, disadvantages, obstacles, how to assess, etc.

Second method which is presented by presenter is Role Playing. This method is also easy to understand because it is very familiar to be used by teacher in all ages of students. Role Playing can be described as a teaching method where the students participate directly in the material process of the learning. This surely very effective to students to memorize the material. 

This method is appeared because generally students feel bored with the class where teacher reads the material and students only listen and write the explanation. Moreover, the class condition is not effective because the interaction between student and teacher is low and students are passive, But, by applying this method, all students have the same opportunity to participate in imaginative and creative learning. But one thing must be noted, this method insist teacher to create creative situation and atmosphere and not all material of target language can be explained by using role playing.

In general, Syahyar’s presentation about Role Playing method is good and can be easily understood. The presenter was very creative in making his power point, interesting, short and brief. There is only one lack from his presentation, although he made a simulation, by giving some words and ask audiences to act as the words, but I personally thought that this simulation was not effective to describe how a role play apply in classroom. It would be better if he made a narrative text and make a role playing from the text. Or he also can made a dialog about question tags and ask some students to be the participants. I personally thought that it will be more effective to describe a role playing in the classroom because it is related to the material. But in the conclusion of this review, I can reveal that his presentation is good.

Task Based Instruction and Textbook Assignment by Eva Ratna Sari

Task Based Instruction (TBI) is a method special to teach language. Actually it is a traditional method. TBI provides students with task, from structure until vocabularies. In TBI, the role of task is really important so that Ramirez make some specification to task namely the task must have clear content and purpose. Besides that, teacher must clearly in giving instruction how the task is accomplished.

TBI have many advantages namely this method is suitable to teach language and can be combined to another traditional method. However, there are also some obstacles to apply this method namely teacher is insist to be creative and initiative. Students are expected to have high motivation in studying. Then, students sometimes do not feel comfort when they have to do their task outdoor.

The next method which was presented by Eva is Textbook assignment. In this method, textbook is the most important thing that the students must own. The textbook become a guidance for teachers in teaching the lesson. The obstacles of this method is the disability in providing the students textbook. Not all school can give their students textbook. Students forget to bring textbook or lazy to open textbook while studying can also become problems.

I personally still do not really understand both TBI or Textbook Assignment method because the materiala were explained by the presenter are limited so that I do not imagine these method apply in classroom yet. Moreover, the presenter looked do not enough understand about the materials.

Content Based Instruction by Mulyananda Yani

CBI is one method which is the aim is to teach language from instruction. This method comes from Grammar Translation Method, Audio-Lingual Methodology and vocabulary.

In this method, teachers can choose the material as their students’ interest. Subsequently teacher can ask students to make group and share information about according to teacher’s instruction. The last stage, students present their work.

Although this is difficult method to be understood and I cannot imagine how this material apply in classroom yet, actually this method have some advantages which will be a lack of teacher if does not know and apply this method. First, this method offer students an interesting class so that it can motivate students to study. Second, students can develop their knowledge. But there are also some disadvantages of this method. First, teacher is insisted to be more creative in finding the materials and source of information. After that, the use of native language will make the learning process is not maximal and not effective. The last, many instructions make students confused.

Generally, the presenter is good at presenting her presentation but she looked as if doubt about her material, whereas she can master the material. Her attitude makes her presentation did not maximal at the end.

Communicative Language Teaching by Farizal Fadil

According to its name, this method really emphasizes the communication and interaction in learning process. Teacher uses this method to develop students’ ability in communication.

In this method, teacher role as facillitator who establishes a good condition to communicate, supervise and control and answer all students’ questions. Meanwhile students role in communication each other, transferring information with using spoken language that can be easily understood by others.

CLT method have some advantages namely students obtain comfortable and friendly condition that can motivate them to study. Then, students can study quickly without memorizing process because it emphasizes the ability to communicate, not to memorize. After that, by often drilling, then students can increase their accuracy and fluency in using target language.

Although it seemed easy, but the presenter looked do not have many materials to explain, the slides are not completed and he seemed speechless so that he fast end his presentation. 

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Tuesday, April 29, 2014

PORTFOLIO by NURUL HIDAYANI

Portfolio is a teaching method where is the students must gather and collect their works to a document called portfolio. Portfolio comes from two word “port” means report and “folio” means complete. So we can conclude that portfolio is a complete report of students’ work. But in education world, portfolio can be also used by teacher by making lesson plan. Not only in educational world, portfolio is also can be used in others words such as art, sport, religion and it actually can be applied not only for someone’s work but also for company, organization, institution and group.

There are two kinds of portfolio namely process oriented portfolio and product oriented portfolio. In oriented portfolio, teachers notice their students development form the beginning, the middle until the last or we can conclude that teacher notice the whole developments of their students. Yet, in product oriented portfolio, teacher is only notice the final result of students. There are two kinds of product oriented portfolio. First, Documentary portfolio to all portfolio paper and then Show/Performance portfolio to all portfolio which the form is presentation/performance. It can be collected by making video.

There are four process in gathering portfolio: collection (students collect data), selection (students select kinds of data), reflection (teacher tests students understanding about the data in portfolio) and the last connection (teacher and students know the students’ ability and lack from reflection).

There are three aspects in portfolio: cognitive, aspect where the students are expect to memorize, understand, analyze, combine, apply and make a conclusion from some informations in their portfolio. Second aspect, affective, more emphasize feeling, interest and motivation.While the last aspect, psichomotor, more emphasize the practice of the lesson such as art, religion, sport, science and language.

There are four things that must be included to a portfolio: title and table of contents, heading and subheading, portfolio body and brief explanatory.

There are three ways that teacher can do to assess portfolio’s students. First, teacher must clearly gives instruction about the content and kinds of portfolio so that students can easily gather and collect the data as the instruction. Second, teacher must develop assessment procedure in order to it is suitable with portfolio’s instruction. Third, teacher must make schedule to hold portfolio conference at the end of the study to discuss about the portfolio.

There are some advantages from the use of this method namely the learning process is emphasized to whole process, from the beginning, middle and the last so that teacher can notice her/his students’ need and development. Besides that, it can increase students’ motivation because of their satisfaction in collecting the portfolio and they surely do not want to be defeated by another students. However, besides advantages, this method is not free of lacks. It is because it takes time for teacher in assessing the portfolio result if the data are vast. Furthermore, sometimes it is hard for teacher to make portfolio conference.

Collaborative Learning by Dian Maya Nurita

From the presenter’s explanation I can conclude that the definition of Collaborative Learning as a teaching method where the students are divided to some groups to solve a problem.  

Collaborative Learning has many advantages, students can improve their ability to socialization because it encourages students to work together, share assignments, and hold debate and give feedback. However, it has also many diadvantages . First, this method needs long time to apply because all students are encouraged to participate. Second, there is possibility there will be problem starts from disagreement that happens when the discussion is holding and third, the class becomes hard to control.

In Collaborative Learning, teacher’s role as fasilitator, mediator, and to transfer (source) knowledge. Meanwhile students’ role to give critic to solve problem.

There are four strategies in applying this method: Simple Jigsaw, Think-Pair-Share, Three steps Interview and Numbered Head Together. Presenter explains one by one the strategy.

This method easily to understand and explain because this method is familiar. But, the presenter did not benefit this opportunity to make this presentation more interesting. There must be a simulation to make audience more understand.

Silent Way (Demonstrate) by Syahrial

As its name, method which develops by Cattegno that uses silence to study target language.   One instrument that is used in this method is called “rod”. A teacher says this rod s a thing in target language and students follow it. For the example, teacher say one rod as “hen”, the students must consider it as “hen”, then teacher calls another rod as “rooster” then students also calls it as “rooster”.

Although this method is very simple, but this method has many advantages namely can improving creativity, finding new things, improving intelligence and can saving the in long term memory. However, this method also has disadvantages because the limitations of the material that can be used by applying this method. The communication between students and teacher is limited.

The presenter was good in explaining this method and he also gave the simulation as well. 

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Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Small Group and Large Group by Juliana

Small Group and Large Group a teaching method that has many explanations but can easily to understand by comparing each other moreover from the characteristic points of them.

Small group can be defined as a teaching method that needs 8-12 or maximal 25 students. This method can be applied in classroom, seminar and workshop. In this method, teacher can be facillitator, leader and guidance of discussion.

Large Group can be defined as a teaching method where students  are more than small group and can be applied in wider and bigger room than small group. Large group can be seminar, conference, lab class, TV/DVD/Video and teleconference.

Based on the presenter’s explanation, can be known that the small group metod is effective than large group because in small group, teacher can control the students and the class easier. All questions, critics and suggestions can be conveyed by students. However, in large group, many students makes teacher hard to control and concern them.

Lexical Approach by Masnur

Lexical Approach’s purpose is to improve students vocabulaty and the ability of students to produce new vocabulary into sentences. In the other words, we can say that from  Lexical Approach, students are expected not only to improve the mastering of new vocabulary but also can use them properly
Presenter started the presentation by showing the crhonology of development of “Lexical Approach”. Then, preseneter explained that this theory includes four things namely Chunks, Idioms, Collocation and Fixed Phrase. All the explanation can be understood except Chunk. Audience had asked the question for this Chunk and the presenter had tried to explained and given the examples but audience still hard to find the true meaning and true understanding of Chunk.
There are six unit in Lexical Approach namely words, polywords, collocations, fixed expressions, sentences frames or head and binomials. All units have been explained clearly by the presenter and he also gave the example foe each unit. It really helped the audience to understand the material.

Generally, the explanation of Masnur about Lexical Approach was very good and I persoanlly can understand and can imagine how this method is applied in classroom from seeing his simulation. 

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