Tanti Sukmahidayanti, 2015 THE UTILIZATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL MEDIA IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia |
repository.upi.edu |
perpustakaan.upi.edu
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents a highlight of this study. This chapter consist of seven sections, which are background, statement of problem, purpose of the research, scope of the research, significance
of the research, clarification of terms and organization of paper.
1.1 Background
Teaching English to young learners is considered necessary needs in Indonesia especially in big cities Rodliyah, 2009. Many parents compete to make their children learn English as younger
as they are. The issue is how the school deals with this phenomenon and how they could provide the students with effective and efficient learning. There are many factors influencing the effective
and efficient teaching-learning. Two of them are the media and the characteristics of the students. Media is defined by Cambridge Advance Learners Dictionary as a method or a way of exploring
and expressing something. Smaldino et al., 2006 argue when media is used for instructional purposes and utilized to canalize teacher-students communication, it categorized as instructional
media. Nevertheless, the utilization of the instructional media seems not effective in teaching English to young learners in Indonesia Mutohhar, 2009. The effectiveness of media is not about
the teachers utilize media or not in the classroom, but it deals with how the teachers optimize the utilization of the instructional media in the classroom.
According to a study conducted by Mutohhar 2009, many elementary school teachers in Indonesia deliver their material in such a way but makes the students still bored, not enjoying the
learning process. Many of the teachers only utilize the provided media in the schools and utilize it to show the materials only without transferring the knowledge in attractive ways to the students.
This phenomenon appears because some of them think that a good media is expensive media and sophisticated media which needs cost much money. Whereas, Mutohhar 2009 argues that a good
media is media which is suitable for the topic, material, the students, and practical to use. In other words, a good media doesn’t need to be expensive, it just needs to be reusable, and so it can help
the teacher to create an effective instruction in the classroom.
Tanti Sukmahidayanti, 2015 THE UTILIZATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL MEDIA IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia |
repository.upi.edu |
perpustakaan.upi.edu
Effective instruction is a result of a systematical planning design. According to Reiser and Dick 1996, p. 3
, effective instruction is “the instruction that enables students to acquire specifies skills, knowledge, and attitudes.” It means an effective instruction is a series of materials, activities
and media which can facilitate students to acquire the objectives of the lesson. This series cannot reach the effectiveness if one of the elements do not work together.
In making the effective instruction, choosing instructional media is one of key principles in the effective instruction. Reiser and Dick 1996, p. 68
define instructional media as “the physical means by which instruction is delivered to students”. In line with this, Scanlan n.d states that
“the instructional media which encompasses all the materials and physical means an instructor and
teacher might use to implement instruction and facilitate learners achievement of instructional objectives”. In other words, a media is used to help the teacher in delivering the materials and
teaching in classroom to help the students to achieve the objectives. There are many variety instructional media which can be utilized in the classroom. Some of the instructional media
commonly used in the classroom are whiteboard, books, realia, pictures and computer-based technology.
Instructional media itself has several benefits for teacher. One of the benefits in using instructional media is motivating students, for example, by presenting young learners with
interesting images, teacher can gain their students’ attention Reiser and Dick, 1996. Interesting images also can courage students’ curiosity to learn or to involve in the learning process. Other
benefits of using instructional media are 1 solving the lack of learners’ experiences, 2 bringing things that couldn’t be brought to the classroom, such as places, animals, big things, etc. 3
creating possible interaction between learners and environment, 4 integrating the experience from the concrete things to abstract ones Rusli et al., 2009. Looking at those benefits,
instructional media will be very useful for teacher to teach English to young learners when the teachers utilized it optimally.
As mentioned before, in creating effective instruction, the use of instructional media is necessary. However, most teachers do not show the awareness of the instructional media
utilization. Many of them only utilize some instructional media to deliver materials and do not use media to make interesting activities in the classroom. Whereas, to cover one of the young learners’
characteristics, teacher should use various teaching techniques and variation instructional activities
Tanti Sukmahidayanti, 2015 THE UTILIZATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL MEDIA IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia |
repository.upi.edu |
perpustakaan.upi.edu
to engage and avoid boredom of the students Musthafa, 2010. Since using only one type of instructional media seems will not engage students in learning process, the teachers will need
several instructional media to make the learning becomes effective and meaningful for the children Kasihani, as cited in Mutohhar, 2009.
Regarding to the use of instructional media, there are several studies that have been conducted. One of the studies is conducted by Abdo Semela 2010 taken place in Gedeo Zone, Southern
Ethiopia. The paper portrays several factors in term of the instructional media use, such as the availability of media resources in their school, their manageability of classroom task and the
administrative support and encouragement provided by the school which comes to result that there is infrequently use of instructional media among primary school teachers.
Another research focusing on the use of instructional media was published by SMART Technologies Inc. 2006 which compiled several observations from Australia, United Kingdom
and United States of America which used interactive whiteboards as the object. From the paper, positive effects from interactive whiteboards emerged; 1 interactive whiteboards engaged
students’ motivation, 2 it had ability to accommodate a variety of learning style and it also helped teachers to have efficient preparation.
In Indonesia, the use of interactive instructional media in teaching English to young learners, was conducted by Kaosar 2011. This research reveals two main conclusions about the use of
video interactive instructional media used in the research in teaching vocabulary: 1 video increased students’ vocabulary mastery; 2 video was positively responded by the students.
Teaching English to young learners does not only talk about how good the media that is used by the teachers. The other important element that needs to be considered is the characters of young
learners. While looking at the their age, students in elementary school up to the age of about eleven are still in an intellectual stage Brown, 2001 of what Piaget as cited in Brown, 2001
called concrete operations. In this stage, children start to apply logical thinking yet they cannot generalize their understanding Pinter, 2006.
Despite their intellectual stage, characteristics of young learners also becomes a major point in teaching English. Harmer 2007, states that young learners’ understanding comes not just from
explanation but also from what they see and hear and crucially, have a chance to touch and interact
Tanti Sukmahidayanti, 2015 THE UTILIZATION OF INSTRUCTIONAL MEDIA IN TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia |
repository.upi.edu |
perpustakaan.upi.edu
with. It means if the teachers only give them explanation, they are likely to pay no attention the materials.
Another characteristic of young learners that is important to be considered is their attention span. Musthafa as cited in Aini, 2013 defines attention span as is the amount of time in seconds
the children are working on task without distraction. Relating to children’s attention span, Harmer 2007, p. 38
argues that young learners “have a limited attention span”, if they are not given interesting activities, they can lose their attention easily. In line with Harmer, Musthafa 2010
states that young learner have only 15-20 minutes to pay attention to their activities in a row. Research on the use of instructional media in teaching English to young learners is conducted
by Aini 2013 in Kuningan, Jawa Barat. From her research, she found that the use of instructional media by the teacher needs to improve which was proven from lacking availability of instructional
media and also lacking of utilization of various instructional media in the schools. Looking at the problems and benefits of instructional media and how the instructional media
has been utilized in previous research, this study intends to conduct a study about the utilization of instructional media in teaching English to young learners for an English elementary school
teacher in an elementary school which has A grade for level accreditation but it is located a suburban area in Bandung to see how the teacher prepares, utilizes media and reflects his teaching
perception on the use of media in the classroom. This study also tries to uncover the teacher’s philosophy on teaching English to young learners.
1.2 Statements of Problem
