Background of the study
3 other countries. They must be able to communicate in English,
therefore they can take part in global community, they can use it for their future works, they also able to negotiate with people
from other country, all those reasons bring Indonesia stand equally with other countries.
Learning English in the early age has strong impact for student’s mother tongue. Jarvis stated that the students’ learning
English in early ages has some disadvantages which give strong impact to
students’ mother tongue
7
. The disadvantages are language loss or language attrition and language maintenance
whether as individual or as societal, socio-cultural phenomenon that focusing on the language shift or language death that
affecting entire speech community, meanwhile in individual attrition, it explained about the psycholinguistic phenomenon
wh
ich focuses on the process of mother tongue’s attrition which finally individuals clearly are loosing their ability to function the
mother tongue. Since English comes as foreign language in Indonesia, the
classroom would be the only place where students share their idea with their friend. Hence, teachers are one important role to make
successful learning, therefore teachers who teach at the early age should have capability about who the students are such as
learning styles, learning problems and difficulties, also what they should do in order to facilitate their learning, as example: ways of
making content more accessible to learners.
8
Nevertheless, it is reported that most English teachers at elementary school were lack of competence to teach English to
young learners. The finding emerged from Depdiknas.
9
The study reveals that only 36 teacher has the ability of English in
7
Jarvis, Scott. Effects of the Second Language on The First: Probing the Effect of L2 on the L1: A Case Study, UK: Cromwell Press Ltd. 2003, p.
82.
8
Richards, Jack C. Farrel Thomas S. C. Professional Development for Language Teachers; Strategies for Teacher Learning, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 9.
9
Depdiknas. Peta Kemampuan Bahasa Inggris Pendidik dan Sekolah Bertaraf International Berdasarkan Tes TOEIC. Jakarta Direktorat Tenaga
Pendidikan, DirektoratJenderal Peningkatan Mutu Pendidik dan Tenaga Pendidikan Indonesia Departemen Pendidikan Nasional. 2009, pp. 30
—33.
4 elementary level, more over there just few teachers has
comprehended the principles of teaching English to young learners.
Students’ learning style is one aspect to succeed the learning. Learning style is the way we accept knowledge. We
gain the knowledge in different ways. Someone learning style is not the same with others and it does not mean that one learning
style is better than the others, for some students studying with full music might be really bothering, but for some other that could be
a peaceful way to gain the lesson. Some students listen to
teachers’ explanation is quite hard to understand rather than teachers show them the pictures with few explanations, or for
other students, they could better understand the explanation by playing their pens or shaking their legs. These are not to decide
which one is better than the others, but it is the way the students are learning something.
Students’ learning style, however, gives information to the teacher about the students’ characteristic, behavior, and
pattern of thinking. Therefore the teacher could design hisher lesson plan according to their characteristic. While In elementary
school, which the students are in age 7
—12 they are in the stage of concrete operations. Learning in this stage is governed by the
logic of classes and relation. The students in this stage are more assimilative in their learning style. They rely on concept and
theories to select and give shape to his experiences.
10
In other word, it is summarized that students in elementary school should
be taught concrete things. Picture really dominated on this age, the real object could be a challenging as the media, or realia is
another media which is helpful for the teacher. Therefore elementary teachers should prepare themselves through any tool
or instructional media before teaching and learning process in the classroom to help the student to understand the materials given.
Parents attention is one aspect that play significant roles to succeed the learning. Since home is the first place to educate
children then parents are dominated these teaching and learning.
10
Kolb, D.A. Experiential Learning : Experience as the Source of the Learning and Development New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1984, p. 24.
5 even Fan And Chen
11
and Jeynes
12
showed that if parents give attention to the students then the students tend to achieve more,
they also generally have high grades, better attendance, complete their homework, moreover, they have higher education rates in
the next level. In other word, parents’ attention will give great positive impact for students
13
. Parent’s attention at home toward their lesson is really
important for their children, for instance children will work their home work or assignment regularly if their parents pay attention
to this matter, they can help them to work home work or just accompany them while they are studying even though they
cannot help them to do it. Students will get better attitude at school if their parents pay attention to their children, they also
have better attendance, and they will have better achievement in
the classroom. Finally, parent’s attention will bring many advantages to the students.
Parents and teachers must cooperate together to make students or children successful in their lesson. Both should have
good communication, they must support each other, they should create a good team to support for their students or children in
their learning. For example when students faced problems to their comprehension on the subject and their parents could not help to
the matters then parents could ask the teacher about the problems faced by their children. This is how parents and teachers to be a
good team support.
In the observation, the writer found that students have high grade in Ujian Sekolah but they have less score in this study,
it also found that students on this area are also less attention from their parents, since parents are workers it is rare for teachers to
11
Fan, X,. Chen, M. Parental Involvement and Students’ Academic
Achievement; a Meta Analysis. Educational psychology review 13 2001, pp. 1
—22.
12
Jeynes, W. H. The relationship between Parental Involvement and Urban Secondary School Student Academic Achievement. Urban Education 42
2007, pp. 82 —110.
13
Hornby, Garry. Parental Involvement in Childhood Education- Building Effective School-FamilyPartnerships New Zealand: Springer, 2011,
p.2.
6 meet the parents to talk about their children. It is found that from
88 samples 68 are workers parents, but it is not clear whether parents work in the office or not. Since parents are worker, the
students are mostly with grandparents to do their activity or just alone at home, when parents arrived at home some parents ask
students about the homework but they do not control it that means students are not controlled and did not get any help from
parents. When parents rare come to school or scare to meet the teacher it explains that parents do not involve in the community
or decision making.
It also found that students in branch three are dominated by visual learning style, from 184 students 88 are visual learning
style. Students in elementary level also enriched by visual material such as a picture, a chart, a diagram etcetera, this is
based on government order to teach young learner by concrete operation, because they are in the stage of rely on concept and
theories, also it gives shape to the exercise given. The writer beliefs that the high score will reached by students from the
nature of students themselves and the material given at school
Since visual learning style is dominating in elementary school, it is interesting to find out the relationship this learning
style with students’ achievement. Parents attention also play important role in succeeding the students learning, therefore to
find out the relationship between parents attention to students achievement is challenging. These two terms are factual
information to know, hence to seek the relationship between visual learni
ng style and parents „attention to students achievement will give factual evidence to community that this
two terms are needed to concern whether to students, teachers, schools or social.