acquired” Vernon, 1971: 217. In this study, the word ‘perception’ is related to the seating arrangement in the teaching and learning activities. Then the researcher would
like to focus the study on the students’ and lecturers’ perceptions on the traditional seating arrangement in Public speaking I class at Sanata Dharma University.
2. Traditional seating arrangement
In this study, traditional seating arrangement is the seating arrangement in all classes at Sanata Dharma University. Alexandra Ramsden 1999: 2 points out that
“desk rows are a traditional classroom seating arrangement of several rows of desks facing the teacher.” The student’s desks do not touch each other but are arranged in
rows and columns. In this study, the researcher would like to emphasize that what she focuses on this study is the traditional seating arrangement at Sanata Dharma
University. There are advantages and disadvantages using the traditional seating
arrangement. According to Don Clark 2001: 1 and Ramsden 1999: 2, the traditional seating arrangement is best used for short lectures. The teacher is often
difficult to interact with all of the students especially with the students who sit in the back rows. This arrangement is not appropriate for the group discussion and the
teaching process tends to be one way because the teacher only gives the lecture and seldom interacts with the students.
3. Public Speaking I
In this study, Public Speaking I is one of the compulsory courses offered in English Education Study Program which trains the students to be able to
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communicate in the target language. Speaking is the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts
Chaney, 1998: 13. Speaking is one of skills of the second language learning and teaching. For many years, English teacher just teach speaking as a repetition of drills
or memorization of dialogues. However, in this era of globalization requires that the goal of teaching speaking should improve students communicative skills, because,
only in that way, students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules which are appropriate in each communicative circumstance.
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