Planning a Lesson

The material of lesson planning was taken from Doff (93-101) and Harmer (121-126, 170-172)

What is a lesson plan?
A lesson plan is description or outline of:
- The objectives the teacher has set for a lesson
- The activities and procedures the teacher will use to achieve them and the order to be followed

The main stages of the lesson
- What to do at each stage
- Time allocation
- Teaching materials and media

Planning a lesson can also use the ABCD format:
- The audience for whom the objectives are writing
- The behavior that will indicate that learning has occurred
- The condition under which the behavior should occur
- The degree of competency required

The following is the example of a simple lesson plan from Doff and from RPP written by a student who did practice teaching at SMPN 2 Cibinong.

The example of Lesson Plan from Doff:

Lesson 16

Aim : to practice talking about clothes, materials and colors
Vocabulary : adjective (woolen, leather, cotton, nylon, plastic)
Structure : present continuous

Review
Show pictures of clothes. Students give words: coat, hat, shirt, trousers, etc.

Presentation
- Show objects made of wool, leather, plastic, etc.
- Present new adjectives. Write them on the board.

Practice
- Students look at the picture on page 93 and make sentences
e.g. She’s wearing a green cotton dress
- Students work in pair
A: What is she wearing?
B: She’s wearing a green cotton dress

Writing
- Write on the board “Last weekend I was wearing …”
- Students write about themselves
- Collect about 10 students’ papers. Read them out.
- Others guess who wrote them

Reading
- Write on the board
“Peru, Sudan, Pakistan”
- Ask students,
“Where are they?”
“What’s the climate like?”
“What do people wear there?”
- Students read the text on page 94 silently and find answers to guiding questions
- Ask and answer the questions on page 94

The example of Rencana Pelaksanaan Pembelajaran (RPP)

RENCANA PELAKSANAAN PEMBELAJARAN

Satuan Pendidikan : SMP Negeri 2 Cibinong
Mata Pelajaran : Bahasa Inggris
Kelas/Semester : VIII/2
Alokasi waktu : 2 x 40 menit
Jenis teks : Narrative
Tema : Season
Aspek/Skill : Writing


Standar kompetensi:
Mengungkapkan makna dalam teks tulis fungsional dan esei pendek sederhana berbentuk recount dan narrative untuk berinteraksi dengan lingkungan sekitar

Kompetensi dasar:
Mengungkapkan makna dan langkah retorika dalam esei pendek sederhana dengan menggunakan ragam bahasa tulis secara akurat, lancar dan berterima untuk berinteraksi dengan lingkungan sekitar berbentuk recount dan narrative.

Indikator:
- Menyusun paragraf menjadi sebuah teks narrative dengan langkah retorika yang benar
- Menyusun cerita sehingga menjadi sebuah teks narrative yang utuh

Tujuan Pembelajaran:
Pada akhir pembelajaran siswa dapat:
- Membuat kalimat dalam bentuk past tense
- Mengidentifikasi langkah retorika
- Menyusun paragraf menjadi sebuah teks narrative yang sesuai dengan gambar yang diberikan
- Menyusun cerita sesuai dengan gambar sehingga menjadi sebuah teks narrative yang utuh
- Menggunakan kosa kata baru yang diperoleh dari pembelajaran dalam kehidupan sehari-hari

Materi Pembelajaran:

1. Kosa kata yang terkait dengan materi pembelajaran:

Campfire thunder lighting downpour rescue evacuate struggle drag shout drown

2. Teks narrative bertemakan “Camping in a Wet Season”


It was in the beginning of wet season but the weather was fine in the morning. My classmates and I went camping to the campground.


We set up our tent in the middle of a field near a small river. As soon as this was done, we cooked a meal over an open fire. Everything was all right in the afternoon. But at night while we were singing songs by the campfire, a strong wind blew. It broought disorder to our tent. We could not sleep because it was thundering and raining heavily. Lightening intensified the downpour. Soon the surrounding area became flooded. We all panicked.
We needed help badly, I thought. It wa very dark and the camp ground was far from the village. We had to save our belongings because the flood water became higher and higher.


Then I telephoned the nearest police station. In a short time a rescue unit came. We got into their truck hurriedly. They evacuated us to the safest area.


We relieved then because we could be safe. We really didnot know our camping in such a season. We wished that we could meet the bright one in the following day.

Tujuan komunikatif teks:
Melaporkan sebuah cerita dengan tujuan memberitakan atau menghibur. Teks narrative bisa berupa cerita fiktif seperti dongeng, hikayat, dll. atau kenyataan seperti pengalaman yang di dalamnya terdapat konflik dan pemecahan masalah.

Struktur teks narrative:
- Orientation: pengenalan tokoh, tempat dan waktu terjadinya cerita
- Complication: puncak masalah atau konflik
- Resolution: pemechan masalah
- Reorientation: rangkuman

Metode/teknik pembelajaran:
Cooperative learning

Langkah kegiatan pembelajaran:
1. Kegiatan pendahuluan:
Guru bertanya kepada siswa tentang hal-hal yang berkaitan dengan season seperti:
- How many seasons are there in Indonesia?
- In what season do you usually go camping?

2. Kegiatan inti:
- secara berkelompok siswa mencari arti dari kosa kata pada latihan 1 yang berkaitan dengan teks yang akan dipelajari
- siswa dan guru membahas arti dari kosa kata yang telah ditemukan
- siswa mengidentifikasi teks narrative
- siswa mendengarkan penjelasan dari guru tentang pembuatan teks narrative
- siswa mengerjakan latihan 2 secara berkelompok
- siswa dan guru mambahas jawaban dari latihan 2
- siswa mengerjakan latihan 3 yaitu menyusun jumbled paragraph dan melanjutkan cerita berbentuk teks narrative
- siswa yang dipilih membacakan cerita yang telah dibuat di depan kelas

3. Kegiatan penutup:
- Guru menanyakan kesulitan yang ditemui siswa pada saat proses pembelajaran
- Guru menyimpulkan materi pembelajaran

Sumber belajar:
“Smart Step”, penerbit Ganeca Exact

Alat bantu belajar:
Gambar

Penilaian:
- Teknik: tes tertulis
- Bentuk: menyusun jumbled paragraph menjadi teks narrative yang utuh

Pedoman penilaian:
Skor 50 – 100

Rubrik penilaian:
Uraian Skor
Siswa dapat menyusun seluruh paragraf dengan tepat dan koheren 100
1 paragraf tidak sesuai dan koheren dengan gambar 90
2 paragraf tidak sesuai dan koheren dengan gambar 80
3 paragraf tidak sesuai dan koheren dengan gambar 70
4 paragraf tidak sesuai dan koheren dengan gambar 60
5 paragraf tidak sesuai dan koheren dengan gambar 50

At the end, I asked the students to work in pair to make a simple lesson plan by using the model given by Doff. They must do it in 15 minutes. After they did it, I asked three pairs to present their lesson plans in front of the class.

This week you are GREAT!

teaching aids

This lesson relates to equipment and technology used in education. I showed the students the teaching aids made by last year students. I also showed the picture of chart, flash card and flip chart.

When I came to the use of board, I challenged some students to come forward and tried to write something on the board by following the principle of board organization. Some students tried to do it. They said that it was not easy to do it. I challenged some other students to draw a simple drawing to enhance the lesson. They found that it was a big challenge for them. I told them to learn how to draw simple picture from a book named ‘1000 pictures to copy’.

At the end, I told the students that they need to be able to use educational technology such as laptop, projector and the internet. I checked how many of them who couldn’t make power point presentation. All of them said they understand the basic principle of making power point presentation and they could make the slides. Yet, the majority of them couldn’t make hyperlink. So, I showed them how to make hyperlink in the slides, and how to link the slides to pictures, photograph, music, video, and movie.

The following is the summary of the material:
The simplest and easiest teaching aid is the board and the chalk/marker.
There are some principles that should be followed when we write on the board:
• Write clearly
• Write in a straight line
• Stand in away that does not hide the board
• Talk as you write

Organizing the board:
• Clean the board before teaching
• Draw a line or two to divide the board into two or three parts
• Write from the left to the right part of the board
• Do not erase/wipe the mistakes with hand or palm

Picture and drawing:
• Cue card is a card held beside a camera for a television broadcaster to read from while appearing to look into the camera. In the classroom cue card can be used for group work or pair work.
• Flash card is a card containing a clear display of a word or words, used in teaching reading. Flash card can also contain pictures.
• Flip chart is a very large pad of paper bound so that pages can be turned over at the top, used on a stand at presentations or teaching.
• Poster is a large printed picture or notice used for decoration or advertisement. In the classroom, poster can be used for describing certain lesson in brief.

Pictures can be used for:
• Drills
• Games
• Understanding
• Ornament
• Prediction
• discussion

Other teaching equipment:
• Pictures and images
• Bits and pieces (realia)
• The board (white, black, green)
• The overhead projector (OHP)
• The projector (LCD)
• Note book /Laptop
• Language laboratory
• Computers and internet
• Cd/vcd/dvd player
• TV set


This week you are VERY GOOD!

teaching writing

TEFL Note #9:

Teaching Writing

Again, I'm sorry for the late posting of this topic.

The last students’ presentation was the presentation about how to teach writing. I expected that the last presentation would be the best one because the presenters had learned from the previous presentations. I was a bit disappointed because they still made the same mistakes in giving instruction, which was still unclear; distributing tasks among presenters, which was still confusing of who did what, and so on.

The presenters presented how to teach writing in different ways. Besides, the presenters chose different kinds of text. There was a narrative, descriptive and procedure text. For the narrative and descriptive texts, the presenters brought with them pictures, but the procedure text was accompanied by real cheese omelet…

The following is the additional material about how to teach writing from Jeremy Harmer and Adrian Doff.

Controlled writing:

• Leave out part of the sentence for the students to write themselves
• Say the sentence, but write only the outline on the board
• Draw a picture to replace part of the sentence
• Write the sentence on the board, and ask students to write a similar true sentence about themselves

Controlled writing activities:

• Gap filling
Example:
Listen to the teacher, then write out the complete sentence

Paper …………… wood. It ………… the Chinese in …………….

• Re-ordering
Example:
Write the sentences correctly

• We/six o’clock/and/tea/drink/get up/at
• Then/the patients/wake/go/and/the wards/we/round
• Sometimes/medicines/injections/them/we/or/give

• Substitution
Example:
Write a true sentence like this about yourself

• Andy enjoys playing football and reading adventure stories

• Correct the facts
Example:
Rewrite the sentences so that they match the picture

• At the hospital, I saw the patient is sitting on his bed. He was wearing red polka dot pajamas. He looked very sad.
(draw a picture which is different from the description)

teaching reading

For reading presentation, group A focused on narrative text. Yet, they didn’t give clear activity in the engagement stage. There were some suggestions given to this group. Group B also chose narrative text.

Different from group A, the teacher in group B started the class by telling a story. In this stage, the students listened. After the teacher finished the story, he asked some questions and the students answered them. Then he went to the core of the material. Something interesting was the teacher used comic strip.

Group D started the class by reviewing all kind of genre. Then, they focused on narrative text. This group used a kind of game for evaluation, but the purpose of the game was not clear.

Some students think reading lesson is a boring class. Yet, if it is presented in an interesting way, reading will be a fun activity for everybody just like what group B had presented.

Here’s the review of how to teach reading:

Reading involves looking at sentences and words, recognizing them and understanding them (a process of making sense of written language)

So, the main way to learn reading is by reading

The purposes of reading are among others:

• Something to find out

• Information to check/clarify

• Opinion to match

We do not usually begin reading with a completely empty mind

• We have some idea of what we are going to read about

• We will usually have certain questions in our mind (things we want to know)

• We may also be able to make a number of predictions or guesses (things we expect to find out about)

In real life we do not normally read because we have to but because we want to

In English classes the students read a text not because they want to but because the teacher tells them to

• It is the teacher’s task to help them to read

• It is important to give the students some reason for reading

The purpose of using a reading text

• To develop reading comprehension skills

• To present new words and structure

• To practice a language

Activities before reading

1. Presenting some of new words which will appear in the text

• Only the words which would make it difficult to understand the text need to be presented

• It is quite possible to understand a text without understanding every word

• Asking students to guess the meaning of new words from the context help them to focus attention to them

2. Giving a brief introduction to the text (the topic)

• To give students some idea what to expect

• To increase students’ interest

• To make the students want to read the text

3. Giving one or two guiding questions

• To give students reason to read by giving them something to look for

• To lead students towards the main points of the text

Checking reading comprehension

• It is best to ask a series of short, simple questions which help to break down the meaning of the text and make it easier to understand

• Even if the textbook contains good comprehension questions, it is a good idea for the teacher to ask his/her own questions

• The questions should not be used simply to test the students, but to lead them towards an understanding of the text.

If you want to know further how to teach reading, one best way is through reading…

This week you are EXCELLENT!

teaching speaking

There was a little problem with group A, so that the post of ‘Teaching Speaking’ was late.

The speaking topics ranged from “Asking and giving suggestion” (group D), “Expressing like and dislike” (group B), and “Describing people” (group A). There was a little problem with group D’s presentation. The laptop they brought wasn’t compatible with the LCD projector. However, the teacher could handle the problem and the lesson ran well. He could manage the time well and gave reinforcement well too. Group B succeeded in triggering the students to response, because they used colorful picture as the teaching aids. Group B also used wonderful picture shown in slides. Yet, I saw that in group B the STT (Students Talking Time) was higher than TTT (Teacher Talking Time). This is not good for teaching language, especially teaching Speaking. Group A also used picture, but they used it for exercise. The weakness of group A was the teacher translated the vocabulary into Bahasa, which was not necessary.

I hope the students can learn from their friends’ presentation. I hope they can take the good points and leave the bad ones. Making mistakes is a part of learning, so that I expect that by reflecting the experience, they can teach Speaking in a meaningful and better way in the future.

Harmer said a good way to teach Speaking is by using the language (in this case, English) in the classroom as the medium of instruction and as the language used to teach the lesson (classroom language).

There are some values of using English in class as follows:

• It will give the students practice in listening and responding to spoken English
• The situations that occur in the classroom give an opportunity for real, natural English to be used
• It will give the students the feeling that English is a real language which is used for communication

There are some classroom speaking activities the teacher can use. Some of them are:

• Information gaps (exchanging information
• Guessing games (by using pictures, sentences, mime, etc)
• Surveys (by asking question and giving answer)
• Role play (by pretending to be someone else)
• Presentation and discussion

The following are Speaking test techniques that can be used by the teacher to assessed students’ speaking ability:

• Discussion/conversation
• Decision making
• Interview
• Form-filling
• Responding
• Question and answer
• Reading blank dialogue
• Picture story
• Explaining/describing
• Oral report
• Role-play
• Retelling story
• Reading aloud
• Interpreting
• Sentence completion
• Sentence correction
• Sentence transformation
• Sentence repetition

The teacher can use some of them at the same time to focus on a particular Speaking component to be measured. For example, if the teacher wants to focus on pronunciation, stress, and intonation, he/she can use reading aloud as the technique. If the teacher wants to focus on grammar and vocabulary, he/she can use sentence completion or sentence transformation.

There some components that the teacher should take into consideration when he/she assesses students’ Speaking ability. They are:

• Pronunciation
• Stress and intonation
• Fluency
• Comprehension
• Content
• Vocabulary
• Grammar

From all those components, pronunciation should be put as the first thing to be considered because mispronunciation will lead to misunderstanding. Yet, some of us have some pronunciation problems such as:

• Difficulty in pronouncing sounds which do not exist in the student’s own language; for example the sound /ð/ as in the word ‘the’
• Confusion of similar sounds; for example ‘hear’ and ‘here’
• Use of simple vowels instead of diphthongs; for example the word ‘continuous’
• Difficulty in pronouncing consonant clusters; for example the words ‘tasks’ and ‘disks’
• Tendency to give all syllables equal stress and flat intonation

Since the teacher has to correct his/her students’ pronunciation, he/she should spend some times to teach pronunciation. Some notes in teaching of pronunciation are:

• The basic steps are for the teacher to say the sound clearly in isolation (so that students can focus on it)
• If students confuse two similar sounds, it is useful to contrast them
• If students have difficulty in producing a particular sound, it is useful to describe how it is pronounced
• Writing words on the board is not necessary, and would confuse the students

The teacher can ask the students to practice certain sounds by using, for example:

• Minimal pairs:

will well

soap soup

goat got

• Completing sentence:

- A boy and a …..

- First, second, and ….

- A pigeon is a kind of ….

This week you are WONDERFUL!

teaching listening

From three groups that presented ‘listening lesson’, two groups used song as the technique. They used different song with the same activity: filling in the missing words. The first group was quite smart by using a cell phone and active speaker as the equipment. The sound produced was loud so that all students could listen to it well. The second group used a CD, and it took them quite a long time to know how to play the CD with the available equipment.

The use of song was not bad. They played the song more than once to make the students catch all the missing words but they didn’t explore the song quite well. They didn’t use the song, for example, to introduce new words (vocabulary) or the structure available in the song. Instead, they used different materials for the next classroom activity. They only gave one listening activity, i.e. listening to the song and filling in the missing words.

However, there was a group that presented the listening lesson very well. They chose ‘personal information’ as the topic. They used different listening activities with the same topic. They gave three kinds of listening activities. They did it very well even though the electricity was on and off during the presentation. The students even studied in the dark and felt hot because the air condition didn’t work. Yet, everything went well. I’m very proud of you. Congratulation for your great job!

Listening class took a longer time than the previous lessons (teaching vocabulary and grammar), so that I only had about thirty minutes to present my own presentation. To begin the class with, I asked the students about the difference between hear and listen. It seemed that only a few of them who knew the difference. So I gave them the example situation to make them understand more. I also gave them an example of listening task both from cassette and from CD.

Here’s the summary of the presentation:

The Importance of Listening

• We cannot develop speaking skills unless we also develop listening skills.
• To have a successful conversation students must understand what is said to them
• To develop listening ability, students need plenty of practice in listening to English spoken at normal speed.
• Listening to spoken English is an important way of acquiring the language – of ‘picking up’ structures and vocabulary

Listening in Real Life

• Casual listening: Listening with no particular purpose in mind, and often without much concentration
• Focused listening: Listening for a particular purpose, to find out information we need

Focused listening

• If we just ask the class to listen and we ask questions afterwards, we give the students a difficult task
• We can make it easier by telling the students beforehand what to expect and what to listen for. This will help them to focus their listening

Listening principles:

1. Encourage students to listen as often and as much as possible
2. Help students prepare to listen
3. Once may not be enough
4. Encourage students to respond to the content
5. Different listening stages demand different listening tasks
6. Good teachers exploit listening text to the full

Listening aims:

• Listening for main ideas
• Listening for specific information
• Listening to check if your answer is right or wrong
• Listening to check for mistakes
• Listening for dictation
• Listening to re-order a jumbled dialogue
• Listening to take notes
• Listening to complete text/picture
• Listening to other learners
• Listening to match pictures with description

Advantages and disadvantages of using a cassette recorder

• The cassette recorder gives a chance for students to listen to a variety of voices
• Recorded material is useful for listening to dialogues, interviews, discussion, etc.
• In a large class with bad acoustics, listening to a cassette may be difficult

Getting students to predict

• An important part of listening skill is being able to predict what the speaker is going to say next.
• Asking students to guess what they are going to hear will help them develop their listening skill.

This week you are VERY GOOD!

teaching structure

Here’s the note from the fourth meeting:

When a teacher present structure, it is important to:

• show what the structure means and how it is used by giving examples

• show clearly how the structure is formed, so that the students can use it to make sentences of their own

• show meaning directly, using things the students can see

• show meaning through a situation, in which the structure could naturally be used. The situation can be real or imaginary

This is how different teachers presented comparison of adjectives to their students.

A: I talked about two buildings in the town (the post office is bigger than the bank)
B: I called a tall and a short student to the front and compared them (Anna is taller than Maria)
C: I drew lines on the board (Line A is longer than Line B)
D: I drew pictures of two men on the board and compared them (Andy is taller than Sam)

• Drawing lines on the board is very simple and clear, but not very interesting.

• Comparing two students would be interesting,

but it could be very embarrassing for the them; drawing two imaginary people on the board would be safer and just as clear.

Referring to local building would be very clear, but it could be more interesting by showing pictures.

teaching and learning

I'm sorry for the belated posting. I had got flu and cough, so I needed to have more rest.

The topic for the third meeting is ‘Teaching and Learning’. I started to ask the students about the difference between learning and acquisition. They said that they had heard about the difference, but they were not sure what they were. I also reviewed teaching methodology by asking them questions in relation to it. It seemed that they were still confused about approach, method and technique. Then I explained the difference of each term. I hope that after this meeting they would understand more about them.

I was glad that the students were more active than a week before. However, I still saw quiet students.

Here is the materials for the week.

Differences between learning and acquisition

Acquisition:

- Unconscious process

- Continual exposures

- High motivation

- Ample opportunities

Learning:

- Conscious process

- Less exposures

- Low motivation

- Less opportunities

Elements for successful language learning (ESA)

n Engage

arousing students’ interest & involving students’ emotion: games, music, discussion, pictures, stories, etc.

n Study

f ocusing on language construction

n Activate

offering students a chance to try out real language use with little or no restriction

Teaching methodology

n Approach

Theories about the nature of language and how languages are learned

n Method

The practical realization of an approach/different ways of teaching language

n Procedure/Strategy

An ordered sequence of techniques

n Technique

Classroom activities

Examples of Teaching Method

n Grammar-translation

n Audio-lingual

n PPP (Presentation, Practice, Production)

n Task-based learning

n Communicative language teachin

n Community Language Learning (CLL)

n The Silent Way

n Suggestopaedia

n Total Physical Response (TPR)

Communicative vs. non-communicative activities

Communicative:

n A desire to communicate

n A communicative purpose

n Content not form

n Variety of language

n No teacher intervention

n No materials control

Non communicative:

n No communicative desire

n No communicative purpose

n Form not content

n One language item only

n Teacher intervention

n Materials control

How should teachers see their physical presence in class?

n Proximity/distance

n Physical behavior

n Movement (watch, listen and respond)

n Contact

n Voice

How should teachers use their voices in class?

n Audibility/Voice quality (loud and clear)

n Variety/Voice management (volume control)

n Conservation (Voice care)

How should teachers mark the stage of the lesson?

n The way teachers behave

n The things teachers say

What’s the best seating arrangement for a class?

n Orderly row/ conventional/classical setting

n Circles and horseshoes

n Separate tables/grouping

What different student groupings can teachers use?

n Whole class/ lecturing

n Group work and pair work

n Solo work/ individual work

Find the advantages and disadvantages of each from Harmer (2001, 114118)

Organizing and principles of pair work and group work

n Friendship

ask students to get into pairs or groups with whom they want to (put friends with friends)

n Streaming

mix weak and strong students/high and low achievers

n Chance

form the group by arbitrariness

n Changing groups

change the groups while an activity continues

Procedure of pair work and group work

n Before

explain clearly the ways pairs or groups should be organized; engage students’ interest and ensure their participation

n During

go round the class watching and listening; help students’ with suggestions; try to move discussion forward

n After

organize feedback, let students share/demonstrate the result of their works

How can teachers evaluate the success or failure of their lesson?

- Ask the students to evaluate the lesson

- Ask colleagues to observe the class and to give feed back

- Write a record of students’ progress

Why teachers ask questions?

- To check that students understand

- To give students practice

- To find out what students really think or know

Questions types:

- Yes/No questions

- Alternative/‘or’ questions

- WH questions

Questioning Strategies

n The teacher asks questions and simply lets students call out answers.

n The teacher asks a question, then pauses to give the whole class a chance to think of the answer. Then the teacher chooses one student to answer.

n The teacher first chooses a student (by pointing or saying the student’s name), then asks the student a question.

n The teacher asks the question and lets students raise their hand if they think they know the answer. The teacher chooses one of the students to answer.

Thank you for your responses. You are GREAT!

teaching vocabulary

This was the second classroom action. It seemed that the students who presented ‘teaching vocabulary’ were still confused about what to teach. For example, there was a group that taught different kinds of vocabulary: fruits, weather, part of body, and so on; too many things to learn and not focused. It is suggested that they only focus on one kind of vocabulary. Of course, they can expand the vocabulary as long as it is synonymous or has connection with the context of the words being taught. There was also a group that taught abbreviation and acronym. It was good, but it would be better if they gave the acronym and abbreviation exercise in English so that the students would learn more English words. The other group taught vocabulary through a reading text. It was also good, but if the focus was the vocabulary they had to give scanning skill, not skimming one.

What made me happy was first, more and more students participated in giving comments and questions. Second, the student who took a role as a teacher tried hard to speak English more during the lesson. I hope that the next teacher will use at least 80% English as a medium of instruction. However, there were still students who questioned about teaching English to children. I told them that TEFL that I am teaching this semester is about teaching English to teenager (SMP and SMA students). Teaching English to children will be given in semester VII (in EFC subject). Therefore, I hope that the students take the teaching material based on the present English curriculum for SMP or SMA.

For my own presentation, I started the class by asking the students’ opinion about this statement “With no grammar little can be conveyed. With no vocabulary nothing can be conveyed.” They said that they agreed it. They explained that without grammar people can still communicate, but without vocabulary, there’s nothing to say. Then I challenged them to translate and correct the letter written by mbak Sum. The student who took the challenge got the sticker. The students laughed but felt a bit confused with the words.

Here is the material about teaching vocabulary taken from Harmer (1998: 52-67) and Doff (1988: 11-21):

Which are the most useful techniques for teaching new words?

• Say the word clearly and write it on the board
• Get the class to repeat the word in chorus
• Translate the word into the students’ own language
• Ask students to translate the word
• Draw a picture to show what the words mean
• Give an English example to show how the word is used
• Ask questions using the new word

• Translating a new word is the simplest and clearest way of showing what a word means, but students cannot see how the word is used in a sentence.

• Instead of telling the students what the word means, give examples and ask them to guess the meaning of the word

Example:

What does grumble mean?

Some people grumble about everything. For example, they grumble about the weather. If it’s sunny, they say, “Oh dear, it’s much too hot today”; if it’s cool, they say, “Oh, it’s too cold” – they are never satisfied.

Vocabulary expansion/development

• The words in Cook: bake, fry, boil, grill are synonym

They are words of the same type and have the same general meaning (all methods of cooking)

• The words in Cook: stove, stir, pot, spoon are related by context

They might all be used when talking about cooking, although they are not synonyms

Active and passive vocabulary

• Active vocabulary

Words which students will need to understand and also use themselves

• Passive vocabulary

Words which the teacher wants students to understand (e.g. when reading a text), but which they will not need to use themselves

Four things that students need to do with language they study:

• Be exposed to it
• Understand its meaning
• Understand its form
• Practice it

Ways to help students understand the meaning of new language:

• By showing and explaining it through objects, pictures, drawings, gestures and expressions
• By using check questions
• By asking students to write their own definition

How can the teacher help the students to understand form?

• Demonstration
• Charts/pictures
• Repetition/drilling
• Pattern
• Exercises/questions
• Dialogue practice
• Students’ own sentence production

teacher

In the second meeting I presented about teacher, especially a good English teacher. I asked the students some questions about what a teacher means, who their most favorite teacher is, why they like that teacher, and whether or not they want to be teachers.




It was not surprising thing anymore that I found, for example, only 5 students out of 17 students who want to be teachers or 8 students out of 21 students who want to be teachers. In all the TEFL classes I teach, the percentage of the students who want to be teachers iss low. I really hope that the number of the students who want to be teachers increase at the end of the course. I really hope that smart students want to be teacher because this nation needs smart and motivated people who care about education to be the teachers for the better next generation.



Since this was the first time I gave the material, this also the first time I distributed stickers. Although I told the students that they need to collect at least 10 stickers to get points, they didn't dare to speak. I told them that they could ask me questions, respond my explanation or answer my questions to get the stickers, but many of them kept on silent. I had to work hard to make them speak. I don't know what makes them afraid of. Is it too scary for them just to say a simple sentence, or do I make them scary? I know I have to change their attitude in learning. It's a real challenge for me.



Anyway, here is the summary of the class.

Before the class began, I arranged the chairs. I managed them to work in group. I applied think pair share cooperative learning structure for this topic. One by one the students entered the classroom. They looked a bit confused of where to sit. I said that they could sit anywhere as they wish. It was not necessarily sitting with the same group members (the group where they belong).

After everyone sat, I began the class. First I asked the students to give opinion about the statement saying "A teacher shape the future one child at a time". They thought by themselves first, then brainstorm with pair. After a few minutes, I invited each group to share with the class.



Then I asked them to watch the movie about Miss Thompson and her student, Teddy. To make the movie more dramatic, I asked them to keep silent and I turned off the lamp. When the video ended, I turned the lamp again. I saw tears in a few students' eyes. I knew that for those who understood they would be touched with the movie. Again, I asked the students to give comments about the movie. From the comments they gave, they concluded that 'a teacher who cares will give impact to a student's future life'



The next step was I asked them to go to the past and dig up the memory of their past time at school. I gave them a question: "Who is your favorite teacher, and why you like him/her?" I asked them to think about the moment when they were in elementary school, junior high school, and senior high schoo. I added that they should mention the subject which the teacher taught, not the name of the teacher. I got many answers for this, but from all the subjects they mentioned the most frequent ones were English teacher. Then I said that they entered the EESP somehow is because the impact that the English teacher gave. They might deny it, but the resul of the simple survey that I did to them showed it.



The next question they should answer was why they like that teacher. The students' answers were almost the same. They like the teacher who:

- is caring and loving

- has good sense of humor

- is wise and friendly

- is smart and clever

- can entertain the students

- is attractive and can make the class alive



Before going to the next material about the roles a good English teacher shoud play, I asked them 'what is English teacher?' Again, the students were confused because I gave them three alternative answers. I didn't mean to make them confused. I just want to ask them to think.



From Harmer and Doff I learn that there are some roles the teacher should play as follows:



-A controller

-An organizer

-An assessor

-A prompter

-A participant

-A resource

-An observer

-A tutor

-A performer

-An entertainer



What makes a good teacher?



-A good teacher cares more about his/her students’ learning than he/she does about his/her teaching

-If the teacher is indeed wise, he/she does not bid you enter the house of his/her wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind



What makes an effective teacher?



-Enthuse students

-Treat students as individuals

-Know the subject

-Be loving and warm

-Teach for learning

-Empathize with students

-Relate to parents and the wider community

-Be firm, fair and flexible

-Be organized

-Prepare students for life

-Manage the classroom

-Have high self-esteem

-Have a sense of humor

-Be a total person with a full life outside school

-Take risk to be a peak performer

-Be an agent of change



I really hope that the students possess some of those characters.

Amin.



You are all did good job this week.