tables without making noise. So it would save the time and the class was not too crowded when they had to move chairs and tables.
b. The seating arrangement could practise students’ self-awareness to study seriously in the class.
As we know, traditional seating arrangement consists of rows and columns. So, there will be the students who sit in the front, middle and back. The lecturers
thought the students who wanted to study seriously would choose the seats which were the most appropriate for them to focus on their lecturer. They could sit in the
front or middle if the seats were still empty. But, sometimes students tended to choose the most comfortable seats, that was the back row, although there were seats
in the front and middle rows which were still empty. So, there was a lecturer who had a rule that every student had to fill the first, second and third row first if the seats
were still empty. The lecturer made the rule in order to make the space between lecturer and students were not too far. The awareness of the students could also be
seen when they had to do group work activities. The students were willing to move the chairs or tables although it was not easy. They helped each other without the
lecturer had to instruct them to move the chairs or tables. Although the lecturers had positive perception on traditional seating
arrangement, the lecturers also had negative perception. The lecturers obtained such negative perception because of some reasons, such as:
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a. The lecturer was sometimes difficult to control the class.
Most of the rooms at Sanata Dharma University were too big class, except I K11. All the subjects had the same room although it was just a small class, like
Public Speaking I class. Of course, all of the classes here use traditional seating arrangement with many tables and rows. Sometimes, the lecturers were difficult to
observe all of the students one by one, especially for the students who sat in the back row because they were not really close and out of lecturers’ control. In the group
work, the lecturers were sometimes difficult to control the class because the students chose the seats a little bit far from one group to the other groups, where the class was
big enough.
b. The lecturer could not interact with the students easily.
Traditional seating arrangement which consists of rows and columns made the lecturer difficult to interact with the students. The lecturer could not move around
easily in the class and come closer to each student. The lecturer could only interact with the students who sat in the front and at the end of the aisle, but it was difficult to
interact with the students who sat more inside the column and back rows.
C. Students’ Suggestions for Teaching and Learning Process Using the Traditional Seating Arrangement
To dig any suggestions from the students, the researcher had the other questions in the open-ended questions and also interview. The following are the
descriptions of the suggestions that the students give. 68
1. Description of Suggestions Given Based on the Questionnaire open-ended questions.
In general, the students give suggestions for seating arrangement in order to make teaching and learning process in Public Speaking class work efficiently. Most
of the students in Public Speaking class had positive perception on traditional seating arrangement. Most of the students were accustomed to this seating arrangement, so it
did not matter for them to sit in the front, middle or back row or do group activity using this traditional seating arrangement. However, there were several students who
considered traditional seating arrangement negatively. In order to improve teaching and learning process in Public Speaking class using traditional seating arrangement,
the researcher tried to dig out any suggestions from the students by means of open- ended questions.
1. Students’ suggestions Gathered from the Open-ended Questionnaire.
From the open-ended questionnaire, the researcher found interesting suggestions from the students about traditional seating arrangement. Public Speaking
focuses on cooperative learning, in which the students are encouraged to improve their communicative skill in group work. Because Public Speaking focuses on
cooperative learning, most of the activities are done in group work. Most of the students think that to make teaching and learning activities in Public Speaking class
work efficiently, the seating arrangement should be changed into the more effective one. So in appropriate seating arrangement the students could work in group well,
interact with their friends and also interact with their lecturer easily. The good seating 69
