REPORT OF SCHOOL VISIT AT SMP LABOLATORIUM UNIVERSITAS NEGERI MALANG

REPORT OF SCHOOL VISIT AT SMP LABOLATORIUM

UNIVERSITAS NEGERI MALANG

  

 Galuh Wijayanti, Hairudin Rahman, Hendra Herliadi, 

Muhtar Raiadi, & Rizky Rahman

Background

As the individual who have social awareness, we all realize that foreign language is the media to communicate with many students over the world. The need of foreign language mastery has increased nowadays since many kinds of profession require students who have good English competence. In Indonesia, English is regarded as foreign language. Teaching English as Foreign Language (TEFL) is an activity in which teacher is teaching English to students with different first language. TEFL activity can occur in state school or private school, and the teachers may be native or non-native speakers of English. In all over the world, teaching English as foreign language is conducted to make students know English and can communicate by using English.

Nowadays the trend of teaching is making students participate in learning activity in pair or group. Individual learning tends to make the class be competitive. In this case the term cooperative learning is the approach that aims to organize classroom activities into social learning experiences. Unlike individual learning, in cooperative learning students must work together in groups to complete task collectively, in which they ask one another for information, evaluating one another’s idea, controlling one another’s idea, etc. Cooperative learning makes students work in group to finish task, as David and Johnson (1975) identified that cooperative learning promoted mutual liking, better communication, high acceptance and support, as well as demonstrate and increase in a variety of thinking strategies among individual in the group. Cooperative learning makes students get learning goal more successful, as May and Dob (1977) found that students who cooperate and work together to achieve goals were more successful in attaining outcomes, than those who strived independently to complete the same goals.

Cooperative learning is now implemented for teaching all subjects in Indonesia. It demands students to be more active and responsible while working in group even though, students are working in group, each student must completes the part that he has but it is not absolutely he must take account of it himself. In that case, students share what parts that they find difficult to do and share idea to finish it. Like Sitala (2010) said,” Each group member has a task/role/responsibility therefore must believe that they are responsible for their learning and that their group succeed.

In Indonesia, the trend of traditional learning still can be found in school. Teachers tend to involve students individually rather cooperatively. However, the cooperative learning in English classroom in Indonesia has been gradually implemented. Observing how is the implementation of cooperative learning at school is helpful for English Language Teaching, because they will have real description of cooperative learning in real context. 

Therefore in real context, SMP Laboraturiom Uneversitas Negeri Malang is the school that we choose for school visit that we want to relate to the implementation of cooperative learning in teaching learning activities because the school has Class of International Cambridge Program which applies Cambridge Curriculum.

Observation Problem

This school visit states an observation problem that is “How is the teaching learning activity by using cooperative learning at SMP Laboratorium of Universtitas Negeri Malang?”

 Observation Objectives

This school visit aims to know the teaching learning activity by using cooperative learning at SMP Laboratorium of Universtitas Negeri Malang.

 

Observation Significance 

After visited the school, observers will get practical significant of active, cooperative, and communicative teaching learning.

School Profile

SMP Laboratorium Universitas Negeri Malang is located in Jl. Simpang Bogor No. T7 Malang. This school was established in 1990 named SMP Institut Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan Malang under the auspices of the Education Foundation of Bhinneka Karya Unit Korpri IKIP Malang.

From year to year, SMP Laboratorium of Universitas Negeri Malang always increases, it can be seen from the number of students who always increases in each academic school year, due to the SMP Laboratorium of the State University of Malang its strategic location and comfortable as well as pass various types of vehicle or public transport city.

At this time, SMP LAB UM has 23 classes with the details as much as 6 classes in  Grade 7, grade 8 at 7 classes, and grade 9 as many as 10 classes. The numbers of students currently are 808 students with the details as much as 244 grade 7, grade 8 as many as 354 students, and grade 9 as many as 233 students. Students were grouped into learning classes totaling 23 classes with details 20 regular classes and 3 classes ICP (International Cambridge Program). The numbers of teachers are as many as 39 students and a staff of about 12 students with details of administrative personnel 4 students, 4 cleaners, and 4 security personnel.

There are four English teachers in SMP Laboratorium Universitas Negeri Malang, they are Imran Hamid, S.Pd, Riska Indah, S.Pd, Cindy Radita, S.Pd and Vinda Damay W., S.Pd.

Respondent’s Identity

The respondent of this school visit is Vinda Damay W. S.Pd. She graduated from Undergraduate Program of Universitas Negeri Malang. Her teaching experience is 10 months as part time teacher at SMP Laboratorium of Universitas Negeri Malang.

Time of School Visit

The school visit conducted on Saturday, August 20^th, 2016 at class 7 E2 of ICP (International Cambridge Program) according to time period of study at 07.40 to 9.15.

 Instruments of School Visit

The instruments that observers used in school visit are observation sheet and interview. The observation sheet consists of teacher’s activities, students’ activities, teaching media, teacher’s performance, and classroom and time management. The interview sheet consists of some questions relate to teacher identity, teacher preparation, teacher’s strategy, teaching media, teacher’s correction and teacher reflection in learning activities.

Teaching Learning Activities

The teaching learning activities that we had been observing was in the 7^th grade of International Cambridge Program. The numbers of the students are 25 students. For this school visit, the observers use two instruments namely observation sheet and interview sheet to know the teaching learning activities. There are five items of observation sheets. The observers focus in observing the data relate to as follows:

1.      Teacher Activities

There are three parts of teacher’s activities: pre activities, while activities, and post activities.

In pre activities, teacher checked the students’ attendance, prepared and used teaching equipment to stimulate students’ motivation by watching a video of “self-introduction”.

During while activities, teacher used teaching media. The media which were used by the teacher were students’ module, LCD projector, speaker, and white board. The teacher also used some strategies such as ‘hot potato game’, chain introduction, and pair work. She stimulates students by questioning students’ name, students’ age, students’ origin, students’ like and dislike, students’ hobbies, and students’ experiences. Then, she gave tasks to the students individually and pair works. She also triggered the students to discussion, and identified students’ difficulties and progresses during the lesson.

Finally, teacher guided the students to summarize the topics and reflected teaching and learning activities.

2.      Students Activities

For student’s activities, our school visit observation instruments based on cooperative learning strategy. Recent studies of English language learning propose that an ideal classroom teaching and learning process should make all students learn how to work cooperatively with others, compete for fun and enjoyment, and work autonomously on their own. The strategy which can be used to achieve those goals is by using cooperative learning.

From the observation we find that the students’ activities during the lesson were students worked in pair and shared the information with their friends but there was no competition between pairs. Since it was pair work, they did not choose the leader of the group and they did not work in circle but they still worked face to face. They learnt together and performed individually in front of the class. Thus, they were responsible for their own works. Teacher asked the students to collaborate in doing the task and after that the students made some decisions. From this activity, it gave the chance to students to trust each other in solving the problem and not dominating in making decision. And from the observation, there was no group processing during the lesson.

3.      Teaching Media

The items which are used in the observation of the teaching media based on ‘ASSURE’ formula. The media which were used by the teacher was suitable with the students’ age or level. The media were useful for the students as audience, students’ behavior, students’ condition, and students’ degree. The teaching median could be used in the class because it was suitable with the teaching strategy, teaching material and it also provided informative content. The teacher used the media properly, the size of the media was big enough, it could be seen by all the students, easily to be demonstrate, economical, and achieved the goal accurately and realistic. The teaching media could stimulate students’ sense of observation and could attract students’ attention. It could be assessed to know whether it is effective or not.

4.      Teacher’s Performance, Classroom and Time Management

The findings of teacher’s performance in teaching and learning process are teacher looked happy, teacher was highly motivated, teacher dressed neatly and politely, and teacher mastered the teaching materials well.

For the class management, it could be seen that teacher attracts students’ attention, the students worked in pairs actively, teacher spreaded the questions to the students, teacher gave time to students to answer the questions, teacher asked the students to raise their hands in answering questions, and the teacher responded students’ answers attentively.

The time management shows that the teacher used the time for pre-activities, while-activities, and post-activities effectively and efficiently, teacher gave time limitation for students’ discussion, and teacher gave enough time to students in doing the task.  

Description of Teaching Learning Activities

Teaching and learning process in cooperative learning should be students-centered and not teacher-centered anymore. Here, students are expected to work by themselves and the teacher task is merely as a facilitator. From the findings above, the writer analyze that the teacher has become a facilitator to her students as she asked the students to gain their own knowledge from the video given. Giving video to students also can be functioned to stimulate their students’ motivations in pre activities. When the teacher gave the video, the students sang along with the video. It can be said that they felt interested with the lesson.

The teacher gave the students some questions based on the topic which they will discussed. By questioning the students, the teacher facilitated the students to gain their own information according to the topic “Introducing My Self”. Then the students were asked to work in pair to share their information. She gave some tasks to her students and triggered them in discussion. The students worked collaboratively in pair but then they performed individually. The teacher used ‘hot potato’ game. From the observers poit of view, the students enjoyed doing this kind of game. All the students worked actively and enthusiastically.

After that, they were introducing theirself in chain. But it had some weaknesses. The teacher asked the students to introduce theirself continuously. First students was introducing his/herself, the second students which was introducing his/herself is someone who sat next to the firs speaker, and so on. It made students who were not in turn became noisy. They had nothing to do. It would be better if the chain introduction was done randomly. For example, the second student who was introducing his/herself was not the students who sat next to the first speaker. It may be the one who sat far from the first speaker. So, all students would pay attention to the previous speaker since they had to be ready to be pointed by his/her friends. Another weakness was that since it was continuously, they cheated their friend’s note. They did not really listen to their friends introduction. When the second student got his/her turn, s/he would borrow his/her friend’s note to be read. If the second student who introducing his/her self was someone who sat far from the first student, they could not borrow his/her previous friend’s note.

During the teaching and learning process, the teacher identified students’ difficulties and helped them to overcome the difficulties. Mistakes were allowed here. The teacher gave a peer-correction chance first and if they could not correct the mistakes then she helped the students in correcting the mistakes. Besides identified students’ difficulties, she also identified students’ progress and gave compliment to the students when the students were doing a good job. In the end of a meeting, she led the students to summarize what have been learnt at that meeting. And she also asked the students about the lesson that it can be functioned to reflect her teaching and learning process.

The students activities in cooperative learning should reflect five elements. They are positive interdependence, individual accountability, face to face interaction, interpersonal and small group skill, and group processing. From the observation, all four elements were done in the classroom. But there was no group processing element which consists of discussing how well their achievement, maintaining effective working relationship, describing what member actions which were helpful or not, and making decision about what behaviors to be kept or changed.

The teaching media used by the teachers were appropriate for the students’ age or level. It could be seen by all the students. It was useful for supplementing the teacher’s activity in the teaching and learning process.It helped students in achieving the leraning goals. The teacher could opperate or demonstrate the teaching media well. So that she could attract her students’ attention and also motivate them in learning. The students could make their own conversation based on the video. Thus, the teching media could stimulate students’ sense of observation. In the end of a lesson, the teacher could evaluate her teaching media whether it was effective to gain the learning objectives or not.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the implementation of cooperative learning in SMP Laboratorium UM is well implemented. In cooperative learning, there are five elements but the teacher only implements four elements: Positive Interdependent, Individual Accountability, Face to Face Interaction, and Interpersonal and Small Group Skill. There is no Group Processing in their classroom activities. But the students and the teacher have contributed for the class succeed. The teacher is well-prepared for the teaching and learning process with the lesson plan, and her teaching media. The students learn English happily, actively, and enthusiastically.

Suggestion

Cooperative learning is better to make students get involved in learning process, so that as English teachers it had better that most teachers implement it in teaching and learning process. Individual learning tends make the class be competitive that it will lead to not good learning atmosphere to achieve learning goals.