Most of the students had been experiencing using traditional seating arrangement since they were in the first semester because all of the classrooms at
Sanata Dharma used traditional seating arrangement. According to Alexandra Ramsden 1999 : 2, the traditional seating arrangement is not really effective for
group work activities. Public Speaking I class focuses on cooperative learning, in cooperative learning, students usually work in pairs or group; they share information
and help each other. The students are encouraged to improve their communicative skill by group work activities. Because there are many group work activities, the
students have to move chairs or tables which are not easy to be moved to do group work or perform role play in front of the class. Nevertheless, 71 of the students did
not mind if they had to move chairs and tables because most of them were accustomed using traditional seating arrangement. It was not a big problem for them
to move heavy chairs or tables. Most of the students 86 also did not mind if they had to move from their first seat following their friends in the group. The interaction
among the students in the group could go well. The students were able to interact with their lecturer easily because the lecturer came closer to each group.
According to Robbins 1993:133, one of the more relevant personal characteristics affecting perception is past experience. From the first semester,
students have been experiencing using traditional seating arrangement until now. Because the students had accustomed to traditional seating arrangement, it became
something habitual in their mind. The students thought that teaching and learning process could go well from the first time they used traditional seating arrangement in
the class. So, the positive perception on traditional seating arrangement appeared because they were accustomed to this arrangement and they felt there was no problem
with that seating arrangement. Although some students had positive perception on traditional seating
arrangement, some students had negative perception. The students obtained such negative perception because of some reasons, for example:
a. There were many distractions in the class when the students sat in the back row.
Although most of the students had positive perception on traditional seating arrangement when they sat in front and middle row, some students had a
different opinion. The students had negative perception on this arrangement when they sat in the back row. More than half of the students 59 had the opinion that
they could not understand the lecturer’s explanation well from this row. Most of the students 70 could not focus on the other group performances when they sat in the
back row. According to them, there were so many distractions if they sat in the back row. The back row is not included in action zone where the front and middle row are
in action zone. There are many advantages when the students sit in the” action zone”. The students who sit in this section of the classroom receive more teachers’ attention.
The students who sit in the center or front of the classroom tend to interact more frequently with the teacher and the number of behavioral problems tends to increase
as the students sit farther from the teacher. Because the students sit far from their lecturer and lecturer can not see them directly, there will be more distractions which
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often occur than students who sit in the front or middle row. One student said, “Yes, because when we sit at the back, we can not concentrate very well, we tend to chat to
other friends or sleep.” The behavioral problems such as chatting with their friends or sleeping happened because there were more opportunities for the students to do that,
especially if the lecturers seldom moved around the class, so the lecturers did not know whether the students paid attention to them or not.
b. The students could not work in group work well.
Some students were not really comfortable if they had to do group work with their friends using traditional seating arrangement. The arrangement did not
encourage the students to do group work efficiently. Different with their friends who thought that traditional seating arrangement was appropriate for group work, there
were 29 of the students who did not agree if they had to move chairs or tables for group work. One of the student said, “ No, I couldn’t, because it is difficult to arrange
where we have to take a seat, if we have to move the chair or the table first which will waste the time.” The students felt uncomfortable if they had to move heavy chairs or
tables in good position for group work and it would could bad noise. That activity would waste the time for the discussion in the group. In group work, the important
thing was the member of the group could corporate with the other member well. Some of the students also thought that that the traditional seating arrangement was
not appropriate for group work because they did not sit face to face each other, it would make them difficult in getting attention, sharing problems and corporate with
other friends. 62
