General Planning Cycle I

a. General Planning

Based on the problems we had found in the stage of fact finding analysis, we had a joint decision to arrange a general planning. We decided to carry out constructivist learning design to improve quality of English teaching especially motivation and participation of the students. It has been mentioned earlier that constructivist learning design is constructive learning, that is an active, constructive, cumulative, and goal directed process Robert and Simson, 1993: 277-278. In general planning, the researcher and the teacher BS arranged a general lesson plan for constructivist learning design, explaining the course description, the objectives, and the planned schedule for cycle I appendix I. In the first meeting, we agreed to emphasize on the concept of simple present tense. Then, in the second and third meeting the learning process emphasized on how to use language function. The scheme of CLD that we agreed to follow included two main activities: 1 the preparation phase of CLD and 2 the main phase of CLD. The objectives of carrying out the preparation phase were to introduce the grand design of CLD which was applied in the collaboration action research, to decide the topics and the agenda of CLD and to find out the teachers’ prior knowledge, attitude, and perception of CLD. After preparation phase of CLD had been conducted, we applied CLD in the classroom. Constructivist classroom stated by Gagnon and Collay 2001: 7 emphasizes on six distinct elements. The first phase of CLD is situation . It is a comprehensive overview of the learning episode with a clear statement of the purpose and of the task we expect our students to accomplish as they make meaning of the event. The details of the learning episode unfold chronologically through the other elements. Next, grouping phase was applied. Groups depend on the situation we design and the materials we have available. We Address several questions to organize groups of the students and associated materials. After that, we applied bridge phase . What activity we will choose to determine student’s prior knowledge and build a bridge between what they already know and what they might learn by accomplishing the task. Next, Question phase was applied. What questions the teacher generates for each CLD element. What guiding questions the teacher will use to introduce the situation, arrange the grouping, and set up the bridge. After question phase was applied, we went to exhibit phase . How students would record and exhibit the artifacts they created to demonstrate their thinking as they were accomplishing the task. Would students write a description on index cards or on poster paper, and give a verbal presentation?. Finally, the reflection phase was done. How will students reflect on what they thought about while they accomplished the task and while they watched other present the artifacts of their thinking?

b. Action