Microteaching as a Subject Perception

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CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

There are two parts discussed in this chapter. They are the theoretical description and theoritical framework. In the theoritical description, the researcher discusses some theories and research studies which are relevant to the topic. In the theoretical framework, the researcher relates the theories to the study.

A. Theoretical Description

This theoretical description discusses the theories related to the keywords in this research. They are the description of Microteaching as a subject, definition and description of the questioning skill and the description of perception.

1. Microteaching as a Subject

KPE 361 Microteaching is aimed at helping the students understand the concept and procedure of the English language teaching and are able to apply them in a real classroom teaching situation and to evaluate their teaching performance Panduan Akademik, 2009. There are two kinds of teaching practice done in Microteaching class. The first one is peer teaching in Microteaching laboratory and the second one is teaching the lower semester students. When they are doing their peer-teaching practise, one student will have a student-role and the others will have a student-role. 9 Many experts have tried to define what microteaching is. According to Allen and Ryan 1969, microteaching provides the teacher Microteaching students a simplified classroom teaching situation. Microteaching is a training concept that can be applied at various pre- service and in-service stages in the professional development of teachers. Microteaching provides teachers with a practice setting for instruction in which the normal complexities of the classroom are reduced and in which the teacher receives a great deal of feedback on his performance Allen and Ryan, 1969, p.1. McLoughin and Moulton 1975 also state that microteaching is a performance- based training which involves the simplified teaching situation which allows the teacher trainees to practice and master each skill of the basic teaching skills. Questioning skill is one of the basic teaching skills that need to be mastered Purnomo et al., 2008. In Microteaching class, Microteaching students also can find a chance to observe and evaluate different teaching strategies by observing their friends’ teaching performance Nicholls, 2002.

2. Questioning Skill Performance

What is Questioning skill performance? Questioning comes from the word question. Brown 1978 defines questions as “Any statements which test and create knowledge in the learner”. Carin and Sund 1978 then define Questioning as an activity in the teaching learning process to help the students find their own discoveries and develop their critical thinking in order to gain more knowledge. Skill is “the consistent production of movements which are learned and specific to the task” McMorris, 2004, p.2. In other words skill is an ability to do a consistent activity because you have learned and practised it. McMorris 2004 believes that skill is “a goal oriented activity and the nature of the goal will 10 determine the way in which we evaluate the level of its performance” p.4. McMorris 2004 then correlates skill and performance, he also defines performance as the outcome of performing a skill p.5.

a. The Purpose of Questioning

Over the years, many educators have acknowledged the importance of teacher questioning in the educational process. Dillon 1988 says that “The better the teacher’s questions, the better a teacher’s teaching and a class’s learning. To know how to question is to know how to teach –or so it is assumed”. Charles DeGarmo also states: To question well is to teach well. In the skillful use of the question more than anything else, lies the fine art of teaching; for in such use we have the guide to clear and vivid ideas, the quick spur to imagination, the stimulus to thought, the incentive to action As sited in Cooper, 2011, p.108. Kerry 1982 states that questions sere a variety of purposes. He says that a teacher typically asks 1000 questions per week. Those questions serve a variety of purposes, as follows : • To encourage students to participate • To engage students in discussion • To attract students’ attention • To assess students’ understanding • To provide a review of content • To develop critical thinking Morgan and Saxton 2006 adds that ”rather than thinking about the type of question you want to ask, you need to consider the purpose for your questions and what you want to get out of them”. It means knowing and understanding the 11 purposes of questions are necessary to be considered as one of important factors to conduct an effective questioning.

b. Kinds of Questions

There are many experts who try to classify kinds of questions. Brown 1978 adopts Bloom’s taxonomy of the cognitive domain theory to classify different kinds of questions that are asked by a teacher p.109. Brown 1978 in his book states that there are eight categories of teacher question according to the student’s expected response p.108. 1 Compliance is a question which requires the student to act according to a command. 2 Rhetorical is a question which requires no reply from the student. The teacher answers his own question. 3 Recall is a question which requires the student to recall information, in form of a word, phrase or series of sentence. The student needs to remember the information just as it was learned. 4 Comprehension is a question which requires the students to understand what the student has learned previously. 5 Application is a question which requires the student to apply the information that shehe has learned to a problem and also requires a single right answer to the problem. 6 Analysis is a question which requires the student to identify motive, to make a generalization, to interpret, to look for evidence based on the information the student has. 12 7 Synthesis is a question which requires the student to express ideas or images, make predictions, and solve a problem. 8 Evaluation is a question which requires the student to give their opinions about issues, judge the values of ideas, and make solution to a problem. Brown 1978 classifies those categories into two kinds of questions, they are lower order cognitive questions and higher order cognitive questions. The lower order cognitive questions are Compliance, rhetorical, recall, comprehension, application questions. The lower order cognitive questions are questions that require the student to simply recall a single fact and require only a single correct answer p.103. Brown 1978 on the other hand, groups analysis, synthesis, and evaluation questions as the higher order cognitive questions. The higher order cognitive questions imply that there is more to learning than just knowing facts p.103. Cooper 2011 classifies two kinds of questions, he states that “All questions and answers fall into one or two categories: no, we are not talking about “right and wrong” but rather convergent and divergent” p.113. A convergent question by its nature has a more narrowly defined correct answer, the questions require a definite answer whether the answer is right or wrong Orlich et al., 2010, p.220. A convergent question, also called a closed question because many convergent questions are lower order cognitive questions, the answer is generally short, and they are “recall-oriented” Cooper, 2011, p.113. 13 A divergent question on the other hand, is opened questions by nature Cooper, 2011, p.113. Divergent questions broader in nature, can have multiple answers, and require then a higher level of thinking on behalf of the students Cooper, 2011, p.113. Asking the higher order cognitive question to the students, encouraged them to analyze situation, make comparison, draw conclusions, make inferences, and solve a problem Orlich et al., 2010, pp.221-222.

c. The Implementation of Questioning Skill

When we look within the broader context of classroom interaction, how questions are asked has a tremendous impact on learner outcomes. These outcomes are not shaped merely by delivering questions to the student vaguely, as a teacher candidates, Microteaching students also have know how to communicate their questions effectively to their students. According to Brown 1978 , the Microteaching students need to consider the eight elements in asking questions. The eight elements are clarity and coherence, pausing and pacing, directing and distributing, and also prompting and probing. The terms are explained below. 1 Clarity and Coherence It means that the questions need to be brief and straight to the point, in order to avoid confusion among the students. 2 Pausing and Pacing Beginner teachers tends to ask more questions but they receive less answers than they expect. It happens because of the lack of pauses and no variation in delivering the questions pacing Brown, 1978. Further Brown 14 1978 explains that a short pause before repeating or rephrasing the question implies that you expect a quick answer from the student. It is needed if you are using a low order cognitive question. While a long pause over three seconds implies that you expect the answer to come from the critical thinking of the student. Pause is the silent time to let the students to think about an answer to a question. As it is also stated in Brown’s book 1978, the kind of question asked by the teacher also determines the speed in delivering the question. Low level drill questions can be asked in quick pace, whereas more complex questions need to be asked in slow pace in order to avoid confusion. In other words, your pausing and pacing will show the kind of answers that you are expecting. 3 Directing and Distributing In giving questions, many beginner teachers have a tendency to give the questions to the students who know the answers or who are willing to answer the questions. It usually happens because the teachers try to keep the lesson flow in a good pace while the main points of the lesson are all covered. It makes the active students keep talking and the others remain silence. Directing questions to the passive students by calling out their name will solve the problem. The teachers need to avoid directing the questions to the whole class too often because if they do so, the answers will only come from active students. If there is a student who is not paying attention to the lesson, teacher needs to direct hisher question to that particular student. Directing a question at someone who is not paying attention to the lesson can be a useful controlling device Brown, 1978, p.106. The question 15 will encourage that particular student to participate in the learning process and stay focused on the lesson. If that particular student cannot answer the question, you can redirect it to another student. In distributing the questions, teachers need to be fair, teachers have to give the same opportunity for all students to answer the questions, to involve the students in the discussion in order to minimize the gap on the students’ learning achievement. As a teacher, you have to monitor all the students in class and embrace them all to participate in the active learning Cooper, 2011, p.116. According to Brown 1978 the students will participate and enjoy discussions if they are given a fair share of discussion time p.106. 4 Prompting and Probing Brown 1978 states that prompting consists of providing hints to help the students in answering questions p.107. If a teacher asks a question to a student, the student may not answer the question in the way the teacher expects or even shehe may remain silence. When this happens the teacher should prompt the student Orlich, Harder, Callahan, Trevisan, Brown, 2010, pp.229-231. For example, a teacher asks a student a question and expects a complete answer but the student answer the incorrect one then shehe continues by giving a partial answer to the teacher. Teacher : What did the goldilocks do in the cottage? Student : she came into the cottage. Teacher : Okay. She saw the cottage and come into the cottage. After that what did she do? Student : She sat down on the chair. Teacher : Yes. After that what did she do? Student : She ate the porridge and then slept. Teacher : Yes, that is right. 16 In prompting the students, the teacher needs to provide positive reinforcement so that the students will be encouraged to complete an incomplete response or revise the incorrect one Orlich et al., 2010, pp.229-231. Probing questions direct the students to elaborate their initial answer Brown, 1978, p.107. The following example is the example of probing questions. Teacher : What do you think about the reading, entitled “Graffiti: Art or Vandalism”? Student : I think the reading is interesting. Teacher : Why do you think so? Student : It is interesting because I like graffiti. I think graffiti is cool. I agree with the researcher because I always think that people who cover the public area or someone else property with painted murals and scrawls in spray paint without permission are not graffiti artists they are just a bunch of people who do the vandalism. Probing questions provide an opportunity for the students to express their idea clearly and get better understanding Cooper, 2011, p.112.

3. Perception

In order to understand the concept of Perception, the definition, description and theories of perception are needed. They are essential to know the students’ perception of their questioning skill performance in Microteaching class. Altman, Valenzi, and Hodgetts 1985, p.85 states that perception is the way stimuli are selected and grouped by a person so that they can be meaningfully interpreted. In other words, perception is a person’s view toward what happens in reality. Another expert also states that “perception is a mental and cognitive process that enables us to interpret and understand our surroundings” Kreitner Kinicki, 2008, p.183. 17 George and Jones 2005 also add that “Perception is a process which individuals selects and organize, and interpret the input from their senses vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste to give meaning to the world around them”. According to George and Jones 2005, there are three components of perception. What someone perceives is called perception if it is involving the three components that are mentioned by George and Jones. The components are the perceiver, the target of perception, the situation pp.105-106 see figure 2.1. Situation or context in which perception takes place Figure 2.1 Components of Perception: perceiver, target. And situation  The perceiver is the person who try to interpret some observation that or she has just made or the input from hisher senses. The perceivers in this researh are the students of Microteaching class.  The target of perception is whatever the perceiver is trying to make sense of. The target can be another person, a group of people, an event, a situation, an idea, a noise, or anything else the perceiver focuses on. The target of perception in this research is student’s questioning skill performance.  The situation is the context in which perception takes place. The situation in this research is in Microteaching class. Target Perceiver 18 Sweeney and McFarlin 2002 state that “Attitudes may be formed by repeated perceptions of events or people, but then they acquire a ‘mind’ of their own” p.54. Each person may have different perception because heshe has hisher own way in seeing something Gibson et al., 1985, p.60. So, there are particular factors that influence someone’s perception. As it is stated by George and Jones 2005, “the perceiver’s experience or knowledge schemas, their needs and desires motivational states, and their feelings moods filter information into their perceptions of reality” p.107. In other words, schemas, motivational states, moods are the factors that influence someone’s perception. Figure 2.2 Characteristics of the Perceiver That Affect Perception In psychology, there is an approach to understand people’s behaviour. The approach is called “perceptual psychology”. Referring to the basic concept of Perceptual psychology, someone’s behaviour is the result of how he sees himself, how he sees the situation in which he is involved and the interrelationships between the two aspects. It means that the individual’s perception about the things surround himher can affect hisher behaviour NADEC-Philipines journal, 1986. Vernon 1962 also states that perception can affect someone’s success and failure. Someone who perceives positively about something will tend to incline to do anything to reach their positive expectation but if someone perceives Perception of a target Schemas Perceiver Motivational state Mood Mood Schemas Perceiver 19 something negatively, heshe will tend to see everything negatively and it can lead to a failure pp.207-209.

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