FINDING AND DISSCUSSION JOURNAL "TEACHER STRATEGIES IN BUILDING THE STUDENTS OF THE KNOWLADGE OF THE FIELD IN TEACHING WRITTING NARRATIVE TEXT"

Hello Reader.....

Come back again on my blog. How are you all? Hope you are fine and happy always. Previously, I discussed comparisons between previous and current journals, and I reviewed several parts of my new journal, Introduction and Method. On this occasion at the blog I will discuss findings and disscussions in the journal "TEACHER STRATEGIES IN BUILDING THE STUDENTS OF THE KNOWLADGE OF THE FIELD IN TEACHING WRITTING NARRATIVE TEXT" from Astrina Nur Sundari, Nenden Sri Lengkanawarti, and Nicke Yunita Moecharam.

FINDING AND DISSCUSSION

This study found that the teacher applied three main strategies in the BKOF stage, those are 1) asked students to translate in most of the class discussion; 2) built students vocabulary; and 3) the point system. The teacher asked the students to translate the text because the teacher believed that if the students cannot understand the language, they cannot understand the topic being discussed. First, the teacher asked the students to translate the narrative text which took most of the class discussion. The purpose of translating the text was to help the students built their vocabulary. In this way, at the end of the lesson, the students were able to construct their own writing. After the students translated the text, the teacher asked them to share their answers related to the words they have translated. The students who shared their answer with the class were given one point.

This was done to encourage the students and to motivate them in learning English. It seemed that when teaching writing narrative text, the teacher emphasized on building the students’ vocabulary. The teacher believed that if the students did not have sufficient vocabulary they could not understand what the text was about. Students 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 have the same opinion related to the translation strategy. They said that teacher’s strategy, which was translating, was helpful for them. They were having a hard time in understanding the text they are reading, if the teacher did not translate the text, from English to Bahasa Indonesia.

They also needed the teacher’s assistance in translating the text because sometimes one word could have different meaning depending on the context. Students need to know the meaning of unfamiliar words in the text to help them understanding the text and eventually they can use the words in appropriate context. This is regrettable because the students tend to forget what they have learned in the classroom especially when they do not review the new words later. If they failed to understand the meaning, it may hinder them in understanding new material. It is important for the teacher to encourage the students to understand not only the meaning written in dictionary but also the concepts it conveys within the text.

In the second meeting, the teacher was more focused on building the students’ vocabulary by translating the difficult words from the short story. The teacher asked the students to write the words they found difficult on the whiteboard. An interesting fact that the writer found when observing the teacher’s performance was that the teacher forgot to change the verb from the infinitive form into past tense. This may be caused by the teacher’s awareness of the writer’s presence and the teacher told the writer in the interview that it was the first time she was being the subject of observation. Another reason was that, for most Indonesian, the concept of past tense is not introduced in learning Bahasa Indonesia. So, such notion is subconsciously emerged into the teacher’s performance. This is quite common in the case of non-native speakers of English.

The second strategy was giving rewards to the students with points which would added to their final English score. The teacher used the point system to motivate the students, to make them more actively participating in the teaching and learning process. All of the students agreed that the point system motivate them to actively participating in the teaching and learning process. However, the point system strategy did not build the students’ background knowledge of narrative text. This strategy was only limited to make the students enjoyed the learning process and became more active in term of answering questions in the class because they wanted to earn extra points from the teacher. When the teaching and learning was taking place, some students did not pay attention to the lesson. As for the punishment, the teacher did not apply specific punishment. In this situation, the teacher approached their seat and gave them verbal warning. This strategy was quite effective but only for a short time. The students’ active participation is necessary when they are learning language because they need to be an independent learner.

It may be enough in this discussion that hopefully in this discussion you who read it can add useful insights and knowledge from my article.

Thankyou Everyone-

TEACHER'S STRATEGIES IN BUILDING THE STUDENTS OF KNOWLADGE OF THE FIELD IN TEACHING WRITING NARRATIVE TEXT (THE COMPARISON AND REVIEW)

Hello Reader....

Come back again on my blog. How are you all? Hopefully you are always healthy. For this blog, I will discuss about the second journal that I will review. Previously I will explain the similarities and differences in the previous and current journals that I will discuss from Introduction to Method.

Similarities and differences

In previous journal differences I discussed about TEACHING GOOD CHARACTER IN A Narrative TEXT THROUGH STORYTELLING and for now I will discuss the journal TEACHER’S STRATEGIES IN BUILDING THE STUDENTS OF KNOWLADGE OF THE FIELD IN TEACHING WRITING NARRATIVE TEXT. So, the difference between the two journals is the purpose of teaching each journal, in the first journal the teacher teaches a good teaching character in narrative texts through storytelling. Whereas the second journal here focuses more on the teacher, namely investigating the teacher's strategy at the stage of building field knowledge, especially teaching narrative text. In the equation here for the two journals, the two journals use teaching about narrative text where the two journals use the writing skill method.

INTRODUCTION

Based on the curriculum, teaching English for Junior High School has to do with the genre and it is supported by systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and involves several approaches; one of them is a genre-based approach (MONE, 2006; Emilia, Hermawan & Tati, 2008, Emilia, 2010; Nurviyani, 2013). The Genre Based Approach is an important approach in the field of English language teaching (Derewianka, 2003). I need a teacher to be able to teach students many types of texts. There are at least five types of texts taught at junior high level in Indonesia Indonesia: descriptive, procedural narratives, narrating, and reporting (Ministry of Education and Culture, 2013). Narrative text is usually taught in the form of folklore and fairy tales. There is a framework for teaching genres, referred to as the Curriculum Cycle which consists of three main stages: Modeling, Joint Negotiation of Text and Independent Text Construction (Emilia, 2011). Some authors, as quoted in Emilia (2011), add one or two stages to the cycle, such as the Preparation stage proposed by Derewianka (1990) and Negotiating Fields and the Deconstruction stage proposed by Rothery (1996) or Building Knowledge about the Field Stage proposed by Feez (2002). The model used in Indonesia is the Rothery model which includes Building Field Knowledge (Negotiation Field); Modeling (Deconstruction); Joint Construction; and Independent Construction (Emilia, 2011). Building Knowledge Field (BKOF) aims to build background students' knowledge to be able to write about the topic being discussed (Emilia, 2011; Svinicki, 1993; Beck & Jeffery; 2009). This stage is the most fundamental stage in the cycle that should be done to help students get to understand the context and its effects on how students understand new information (Emilia, 2010; Emilia, 2011; Svinicki, 1993). Equip students with appropriate and background knowledge that is quite similar to Lev Vygotsky's scaffolding theory. Students cannot understand their content learning if they cannot understand what they are learning (Cameron, 2000 as quoted in Thomson, 2012) and they need help teachers to help them understand the topic being studied (Gibbons, 2015; Maybin, Mercer & Stieter , 1992; Wilson & Devereux, 2014).

Basic Principles on Genre-Based Approach (GBA)

The Genre Based Approach is an approach that is relevant to the context of teaching English as a Foreign Language in Indonesia (Emilia, 2011). This approach has been used in the Indonesian language curriculum in teaching English.

Building Knowladge of Field (BKOF)
On the BKOF or Negotiating Field stage based on the Rothery model, the teachers need to identify several aspects before deconstructing a text.

Scaffolding
Equip students with appropriate and adequate background knowledge, in many ways such ways, similar to Lev Vygotsky's scaffolding theory. Scaffolding in the context of learning refers to "a process by which a teacher provides students with a temporary framework for learning" (Mulatsih, 2011, p. 102).

Narrative Genre

Joyce and Feez (2004) stated “A Narrative is a text type which tells a story in which people encounter a problem or crisis that they need to overcome…” (as cited in Emilia, 2010, p. 167). Furthermore, narrative texts are used to teach moral lessons, to amuse, and to explore social values (Joyce & Feez, 2004; Christie & Derewianka, 2008; Gibbons, 2009 cited in Emilia, 2010). In this study, narrative genre refers to the narrative texts which are commonly used in Indonesian English class such as folktales and fairytales.

Method

In accordance with the objectives of the study, descriptive qualitative methods were applied to describe the teacher's strategy in building students' knowledge of the field in teaching narrative text writing. This research was conducted at one public junior high school in Bandung. The participants of this study were English teachers who taught in eighth grade and one eighth grade first grade students in the 2016/2017 academic year. The selection of sites and participants is due to the following reasons. First, it is possible to conduct an investigation, where the narrative text is taught in the eighth grade. Second, teachers and students' willingness to participate in learning. Data collection techniques that involved four types of instruments included questionnaires, class observations, interviews, and document analysis. The questionnaire was developed based on the BKOF framework proposed by Hammond (1992) and the steps on the BKOF stage were suggested by Emilia (2011). The questionnaire consisted of 19 questions covered in goods. The type of closed questionnaire was chosen mainly for two reasons: 1) easier and faster for respondents to answer and 2) respondents were more likely to answer sensitive questions because questions were limited to the alternative set offered (Reja, et al., 2013). The statement in the questionnaire was written in Indonesian to give participants a better understanding of what was being explored in this study. The questionnaire consisted of 19 statements which included the previous teacher's knowledge of the Genre-Based Approach, the teacher's opinion on the implementation of the Genre-Based Approach focusing on the BKOF stage, and the teacher's strategy according to Emilia's framework and steps on the BKOF stage in genre-based teaching. The questionnaire uses a 4-point Likert scale that measures how teachers develop a teaching strategy when teaching narrative text writing. For example, in response to the statement "When choosing strategies for teaching writing, I always consider the age, ability, and student learning habits", respondents choose one of the following options 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = agree , and 4 = strongly agree.