Communicative competence Classroom Practice

4.4 Classroom Practice

To investigate teachers‟ belief thoroughly in this study, the last point to discuss is classroom practice. It becomes the biggest part of discussing teachers‟ belief of how to develop successful learners since it relates to the practical and technical actions done by the teachers directly to the students in the instruction. To determine a successful learner, a number of parameters are required. Each parameter is used to evaluate every learner‟s achievement related to the parameter. In this part, the learner parameter is derived from four outlines; general parameter, government parameter, learner variable, and learning variable. Firstly, In general parameter part, based on Ellis 2008, there are five parameters to discuss namely communicative competence, grammar, students‟ involvement, learning awareness, and learning strategy. Meanwhile, government parameter in this study is limited on the character education. Thirdly, in learner variable as proposed by Grifftiths 2008, the researcher summed up motivation, age, personality, gender, meta cognition, autonomy, culture, and aptitude. The last parameter classification is about learning variables which are summed up into vocabulary, pronunciation, listening, speaking, reading, writing, and error correction.

4.4.1 Communicative competence

Regarding communicative competence, it is generally agreed that the informants have different individual perspectives. To begin with, Lilin brings up her belief that to develop communicative competence, a teacher should develop both spoken and written skills. For spoken skills, a teacher can hold English Day program with fine punishment. The students are required to use English during the learning activity. Once they use non English terms, they will be fined. Meanwhile, for written skills, a teacher can have a project such as English magazine. Yes, I applied English Day when I taught RSBI program. One non English word they have to pay. Lilin, A60. ... I had my students make a written product but once more it is for RSBI at the past. I always assigned them to make a magazine... Lilin, A62. In the same way, Inu distinguishes two efforts of communication development, namely spoken and written. He states that t o develop students‟ communicative competence, a teacher should be able to facilitate written and spoken cycle skills development. In developing spoken skills, a teacher should be able to develop students‟ micro speaking skills namely pronunciation, vocabulary, and mental. Whereas in developing written skills, a teacher should be able to develop students‟ grammar, vocabulary, and spelling. ... I develop two types of communication, spoken and written. For spoken, I integrate pronunciation, vocabulary, and mental. .. For written communication, I integrate grammar, vocabulary, and spelling . Inu, A45. ... usually I record it so we can see about the eye contact, we evaluate also the pronunciation... Inu, A46. Inu‟s effort in developing spoken communicative competence appears in Observation 2 09.45. He practiced his effort to develop students‟ mental to prepare students‟ performance. He said, “Sit down and be quiet, please. Let‟s continue our lesson”. He reminded about the following meeting agenda that is performance on singing an English song in group. It would be recorded so he asked the students to practice a rehearsal before the recorded performance. After that, he also gave feedback and input toward their pronunciation, expression, mimic, gesture, and tone. He also gave a model of singing a song performance. Still in Observation 2 08.50, In this case, he integrated grammar with writing skill. Differently, Anggi emphasizes the communicative competence only on the spoken form. Even, she thinks developing communicative competence is the same as developing speaking skill and regards a good learning and teaching condition occurs when the students speak up. Students are really welcome to speak up in English step by step. Sometimes she needs to help them translate certain difficult terms and expressions. From the entire classroom observation, it can be clearly seen that she gave more portions on speaking skill. She did explaining, reviewing, motivating, error correcting, and other teaching actions orally more often than using writing media. One of the proofs can be seen in Appendix 3, Observation 1 08.45. Anggi asked the students to close their books and put them aside then asked some questions orally about functional texts. Some students responded the questions voluntarily but some were pointed. She emphasized not to be afraid of making mistakes as there was no reward for correct answer and no punishment for incorrect answer because it was for checking their understanding about functional text. This belief is in line with her statement as follows. ...Along my teaching period, I always let the students speak up... Anggi, A22. From the explanations, it can be interpreted that all informants hold a belief that communicative competence delivers meaning in communication. Two informants, Lilin and Inu have similar shared belief that communicative competence has two forms, namely spoken and written. Meanwhile, Anggi just focuses on spoken form to develop communicative competence. For Lilin, real practice is seen as an appropriate technique to develop communicative competence instead of assigning task. For oral communication, she believes giving a rule to speak full English in a particular time and fining for the non English terms are the best way to develop communicative competence. It is due to the natural, spontaneous, and contextual practice the students use in speaking. In addition, she believes assigning a big project such as making an English magazine with agreed theme and topic is seen the best way to develop written communicative competence. It is due to the time needed in completing a written project is quite long so the students can develop their competence accordingly while creating meta cognition autonomously. As for Inu, since there are two types of communication, that is spoken and written, he puts micro skills into consideration. He develops the micro skills which support spoken and written communication to construct spoken and written communication well. Besides, he does an evaluation of spoken communication by reflecting students‟ achievement that is by assessing students‟ recording. While for Anggi, she believes that the nature of communication is speaking. So, developing speaking occurs simultaneously with developing communicative competence. The three beliefs enrich the theory proposed by Brown 2001 that communicative competence emphasizes meaning as the goal of communication. In delivering the meaning, he formulates some supporting components, namely, organizational competence grammar and pragmatic competence language function.

4.4.2 Grammar