The Experience of Learning "Teaching English as a Foreign Language" With Mr. Ari Sukmana, S.Pd, MAT

A magician has to learn the tricks of magic before showing it to the audiences. In the same way, would be teacher should know the tricks of teaching before they teach their real students in the class. A would be English teacher, for example, can learn the tricks of teaching English by learning TEFL. What is TEFL? TEFL, Teaching English as a Foreign Language, refers to teaching English to students whose first language is not English. By learning TEFL, would be English teachers will know the various techniques in teaching English, how to arrange the class, and what they should prepare before teaching so that they will be ready when they have to teach the real students. My following experiences of learning TEFL II with Mr. Ari Sukmana, S.Pd, MAT will describe what we can get from learning TEFL.
Before the middle term test

On the first meeting, Mr. Ari introduced us to Teaching Stage. It is the teaching sequences that teachers should hold when they are teaching. There are two kinds of stages can we use:

1. PPP : Presentation, Practice, Production
2. PDP : Pre-, During, -Post

The two have the same comprehension. A good teaching method should hold those three sequences. The teaching stage will help teachers to stage what they will teach called Lesson Plan. So, Lesson Plan is teacher's detail description of the course that contains of the instructions of an individual lesson.

The Example of Lesson Plan



Notes:
• T : Teacher
• C : Class
• AS : Advanced Students
• Ss : Students

Based on the plan, we can know that presentation stage focuses on teacher explains about the lesson or rule of activity they will do. Meanwhile, practice stage focuses on students do the activity related to the lesson. Then, production stage focuses on how students can produce what they have got along the activity. The arrangement of lesson plan depends on the topic of lesson teachers want to teach. Lesson plan usage will make teachers easy to arrange the class and stay focus on the topic of learning.

Mr. Ari also stressed on not directly explaining the main lesson first in teaching. However, we should make students relax by using warming up related to the lesson students will discuss about. For example, we can use the principle of Schemata Activation in which teachers try to bring the mind of students to words or anything related to the topic of the lesson we want to teach. According to Mr. Ari, a good teaching should contain of integrated skills of English, those are Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. Besides, it is better to let students learn the lesson based on the natural order refers to the natural development of baby who starts the learning process through Listening first. Mr. Ari also said that teachers no need to use a lot of materials to teach, but adjusted to the level of students, called i+1 theory, and the environment where the learning process held (contextual teaching). To make the class alive, teachers can ask students to do a lot of interesting activities that involve interaction among students in groups or pairs.

Based on the theory Mr. Ari had explained, he tried to teach us how to practice those in the class. At the first time, Mr. Ari started the class by saying salam and asking how we were. Then, he asked us how to introduce ourselves to somebody else, just to remind us. After that, he turned on a cassette containing a short conversation entitled 'Please, Call me Beth!' and asked us to write anything we heard. Afterward, he asked to correct our work based on the copy of the original conversation script he gave and check it with the cassette again. Next activity, Mr. Ari practiced the conversation with one of the students, and then asked us to practice that with our pairs he had divided into. After practicing the conversation based on the text, we changed the information with our own information and practiced it again. For the last activity, Mr. Ari asked us to do the drill based on the conversation we had practiced, practice the drill with our pairs, and change the information in the drill by using our own information (meaningful drill). Before ending the class, he gave us homework to make the example of information gap and then asked to fill the following exit card in order to know what had made us easy or difficult along following the lesson that he can give feedback for us.

The example of Exit Card



In the afternoon, Mr. Ari asked us to do an 'Information Gap' activity. It is an activity where students in pairs get incomplete tasks. So, they should ask one another to get the missing information they need to complete the task together. This activity is very useful to improve speaking skill of students because they are insisted in asking questions actively to find the answers.

As soon as Mr. Ari greeted us, he put us in pairs and gave different pieces of paper contained of the examples of information gap for us. Student A got a paper contained of missing information that student B looked for. Conversely, student B got a paper contained of missing information that student A looked for. Then, Mr. Ari explained the rule of activity we would do. After that, each pair asked one another started from student A. When Mr. Ari clasped his hands, it meant that student B could take their turn to ask student A and wrote the missing information they got in the paper. Fifteen minutes later, Mr. Ari asked us to stop asking and guided us to check our work. Before ending the class, Mr. Ari briefly summarized the lesson he had taught.

The Example of Information Gap For Student A




The Example of Information Gap For Student B




On the second meeting, Mr. Ari taught us how to apply the principles of Cooperative Learning. Cooperative or Collaborative Learning is one method of teaching that essentially involves students learning from each other in groups. This method believes that cooperation is the most important thing that can make students learn more effectively.

Mr. Ari started the class by put us in group of four. Then, he gave each member of every group a piece of paper contained a paragraph and explained the activity they would do. After reading and understanding the paragraph they got, each student should share the information they got from the paragraph to the other members and then arrange each piece of paragraph to a complete text entitled 'To Tip or Not To Tip'. Subsequently, Mr. Ari asked two students of each group to move to other groups, while the other two stayed on their original group. The staying students are called the hosts, while the moving ones are called the guests. In the other group, both the guests and the hosts shared information they got each other. As Mr. Ari clasped his hands, the guests moved to the other groups again and did the same activity. This activity was continued until the guests back to their original group.

In this activity, Mr.Ari combined two techniques of cooperative learning, that were jigsaw reading and two stay-two stray. Jigsaw reading is one of techniques that combine integrated skills of English (Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing). This techniques is developed by Aronson et al and practiced by using teaching aid from pieces of papers contained of paragraphs. Meanwhile, two stay-two stray is the technique of cooperative learning that developed by Spencer Kogan (1992). The structure of this technique gives chance for groups of students to share the information they get to the others.

After each guest came back to their original group, Mr. Ari gave individually test based on the text. Their scores would be added together to their own group score. If there was, at least, one member who got less score, whole members of the group should read the text again and repeated the test.

After the middle term test

On the first meeting, Mr. Ari taught us about Scaffolding, a principle that stresses on the way to exploit the ability of each member in a team work. The principle of scaffolding is applied on the cheer leader formation and the frame of a building, means that it is planed and structured. Besides, it had inspired the experts to make a learning method based on the principle of scaffolding, that is cooperation, called Cooperative Learning.

Scaffolding Image



There are three principles of Cooperative Learning
1. Positive Interdependence means that each member of a group depends on each other to reach the goal together.
2. Individual Accountability means that each member of a group individually has responsibility to do the best for achieving the goal together.
3. Face to Face Interaction means that every group is given chance to meet and discuss together.
4. Intermember Communication means that each member of a group should be given chance to express their idea and accustom to listen to the others.
5. Group Evaluation means that teacher should evaluate the cooperation process of each group and the result they get so that they can cooperate effectively for the next activity.

After giving explanation about scaffolding and cooperative learning, Mr. Ari asked us to do the 'Jigsaw reading' activity again. He put us on group of four or five. Then, he cut some complete texts into pieces and spreaded them to each group. Each group had different topics of the texts and each member of a group got a piece of it. Each of them had responsibility to read a piece paragraph they got to the other members. Afterward, Mr. Ari asked questions to each group related to the paragraph they got. Each member of the groups should cooperate to answer the questions correctly without looking at the paper. Group that could not answer the questions should repeat reading the pieces of paragraphs again. Before going home, Mr. Ari assigned each group to find the using of different preposition for the next meeting.

On the second meeting, we discussed about some kinds of prepositions in group. Each group got different prepositions to discuss and we had to identify the use of each. Then, we did the 'two stay-two stray' activity. The guests of each group moved to the other groups to share the use of prepositions they got. Conversely, the guests would also get new information about the use of prepositions that the hosts got. After coming back to our original group, Mr. Ari asked us to write the result of our discussion in a large colorful paper. After that, we were allowed to put it on the wall. The next activity, Mr. Ari asked us to walk around looking at the work result of the other groups like when we were looking around some paints in a museum. The principle of this technique refers to the 'Gallery Walk' activity. It is one techniques of cooperative learning that can give chance for each group to exhibit their works.

After making sholat, Mr. Ari restarted the class by giving an envelope for each group. The envelopes were contained of some words in English and Bahasa Indonesia. Then, he asked us to match the two and try to memorize them. Each member of group helped each other to memorize the words. How was the way? At first, one student closed the words in Bahasa and the other students tried to guess their pairs in English. In contrary, the student changed to close the words in English and the others tried to guess their pairs in Bahasa. As the result, we could easily understand the text Mr. Ari gave later because those words we had memorized were taken from the text. This activity refers to the 'Scrambled Words' activity in which teacher gives messed words in some envelopes and ask students to match or arrange them together with their group.

The Example of The Text



In the last meeting, Mr. Ari introduced us to Participatory Approach. It is a learning method that involves the participation of students along the learning process. There are two important elements in this method:
1. Teacher as the Problem poser who gives problems to students.
2. Students as the Problem Solver who cooperate to give solutions to the problems in group.

As Mr. Ari put us in groups of two or three, he showed us a picture of two man on a small boat collecting rubbish in the dirty river. After that, he asked each group to describe the picture, identify what the problem based on the picture, and our opinion to solve that problem. Then, he asked to listen the conversation which had related topic with our first discussion and gave questions based on the conversation for each group. Finally, he closed that last meeting by giving a homework making a portfolio about our Experiences along learning TEFL II with him.

In summary, Learning TEFL II with Mr. Ari had given us new knowledge about how to teach student. We can know some method and techniques can we use to teach. In addition, we also know what should we concern and prepare before teaching students. A good preparation, best techniques, and better arrangement of class will make the learning process alive so that students will enjoy the class and easily understand the lesson we teach.

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