27
motivated to contribute and speak up their ideas about words and elements they already know, in relation to drama. It was to prepare and direct students’
enthusiasm to go to the topic, which was about drama. Along this activity, the investigation of the occurrence of scaffolding and its types had been started. After
the introduction about the topic was done, the students were going to the next activity, which was called working from scenarios or scripts, as suggested by
Maley and Duff 2005, p 207- 208. The students worked in pairs. Each pair was given a same short dialogue that was a part of scenario or scripts. They were
asked to interpret the same short dialogue. The determined scripts were the words to be spoken, and the students were given the opportunity and time to think about
the detailed description of the characters and the way they moved and spoke, and even the setting that might happen, according to the given scripts. With the same
dialogue given to all of the students on each time, each pair would have their own interpretations, event though they were circumscribed by the script. Along this
activity, the teacher provided her support and assistance whenever the students needed it. In the end, the students were going to perform the short dialogues in
front of the class. There were various stories that were performed, as the results of their own interpretations.
3. The Second Grade Students of High School
In this study, the writer took second grade students of SMAN 1 Kalasan to be the participants. Hence, it is important to understand about the second grade
high school students’ characteristics as human beings and as learners. According to Erikson, second grade students of senior high school are in the period of
28
adolescence. This period of life is generally considered to run from age ten to age twenty-five. This period is said to be a time of “storm and stress” as cited by
Eccles, 2002, p. 8. Adolescence is a time when an individual faces significant change on many levels of human being. This includes the change of the shape of
the body, the increasing of hormones, and the change in brain architecture. Since the study focused on the second grade students of senior high school, it is
important to recognize their characteristics. Adolescence is a period when individuals start making choices in life and
involving in developed behaviors as they can influence their future lives. For instances, adolescents decide where high school to go, which courses to take,
which major to choose, which after-school activities to participate in, and which groups to join. These are in line with their plans to prepare their future education
and occupation. Erikson explains that the key challenges for the adolescence period of life
are developing a sense of mastery, a sense of identity, and a sense of intimacy as cited in Eccles, 2002, p. 8. Furthermore, Eccles hypothesizes these challenges
into more specific tasks: “1 changing the nature of the relationship between youth and their
parents so that the youth can take on a more ‘‘mature’’ role in the social fabric of their community; 2 exploring changing social-sexual roles and
identities; 3 transforming peer relationships into deeper friendships and intimate partnerships; 4 exploring personal and social identities; 5
focusing some of this identity work on making future life plans; 6 and participating in a series of experiences and choices that facilitate future
economic independence or interdependence” p. 8.
Change in cognition is one specific change that happens during adolescence period. Adolescents have an increasing ability to think abstractly, as
29
well as it is real. They are able to engage in more complex and elaborate information and strategies, consider multiple problems all at once, and think on
one’s self and on complicated problems. It is found that in their time, adolescents are going on a stable increase in learning strategies, knowledge of various topics
and subject areas, the ability to apply their base or prior knowledge to the new situations of learning, and being aware of their strengths as well as their
weaknesses as learners. Considering the special characteristics of adolescents, the writer believed
that the second grade students of high school are able to achieve the material and activities provided because they can evolve by connecting their prior knowledge
with the new learning. The students of this age could process and increase learning strategies, therefore, they could encounter the implementation of
scaffolding in English conversation class. Recognizing the characteristics of students of their age also helps to determine and to design the suitable materials
and activities to best meet the learning objectives in English conversation class. Many theories say that the adolescence period is a transition from child to
more mature person, called as adolescent. As adolescent, he or she is in the process of finding his or her self-concept, starting to think about future life, and
understanding others. In relation to future life, in this time, adolescents consider being focus in life planning issues, which connected to educational, occupational,
recreational, and marital options p. 9. Based on those facts, the writer hopes that students could understand the significance of achieving learning objectives
30
determined for the English conversation class. They could process in mind that every attempt to learn would bring benefit to their life.
In fact, the second grade students of SMAN 1 Kalasan reflected several characteristics that are described by Erikson as cited in Eccles, 2002, pp. 8-9.
They were in the period where they were changing their behaviors from children to be adults. Here, the writer observed that most students in this year were trying
to build their characters to get a self-image. Several behaviors were following the process of characters building, such as, such behaviors that show about them
being creative, whether being passionate or even ignoring learning, being sensitive about surroundings, showing desire of some aspects of life, looking for
more attention, and wanting to be acknowledged. Hence, the teacher’s contribution played an important role to support their characters building. They
preferred to build friend relationship with their teachers. Teachers whom they thought knowing much about ‘teenage world’ would be more acceptable. It would
be useful to influence the learning atmosphere in class. Since SMAN 1 Kalasan is well known as one of favorite public schools in
Sleman, they make high standard for the students especially in academic and non- academic field. The students are demanded to fulfill and achieve the set standards.
They are demanded to work harder to get a good achievement in academic and non-academic field. The writer noticed that sometimes that high expectation
coming from the school pressed students. Having tight schedule and the expectation to get a good achievement, sometimes some students started to
underestimate few things that they considered unimportant and bringing no
31
benefits to their final score. One of things they considered unimportant was related to some extracurricular subjects, such as English conversation class. Since
English conversation class was an extracurricular subject, score they got from this class would not affect their final score reported every semester. Some students
who ignored the important goal of English conversation class did not take this lesson seriously. It showed that sometimes students assumed that the score was
everything. The process of absorbing knowledge was forgotten. This fact challenged the English conversation class teachers to provide suitable techniques,
tasks, and activities that could help students to understand the importance of learning.
B. Theoretical Framework
In this study, there are three problems to be formulated. In order to answer the first research problem, which is proposed to address the types of scaffolding
teaching techniques, the writer uses the theory from Roehler and Cantlon 1997. They propose five types of scaffolding, namely, offering explanations, inviting
students participation, verifying and clarifying student understandings, modeling of desired behaviors, and inviting students to contribute clues p. 16.
After knowing and understanding the five types of scaffolding, the study is continued to seek the answer of the second research problem, which is formulated
to identify the occurrence of the five types of scaffolding during the English conversation class. In order to answer the second research problem, the writer
uses the theory of scaffolding that has been described above. The definition of
