become a place to study but it should provide a centre of stress management and conflict resolution. The fourth, to avoid relationship gap, teachers and school should
provide opportunities for students to know each other. It can be done through getting students involved in service activities such as picking up trash around the school,
conducting a car wash to raise money for a class wide social activity, training students in peer mediation, or providing a child care training for students.
2.1.4.2 The teaching of English to junior high school students
English is regarded as a foreign language in expanding circle countries in which it is used in formal education Graddol: 2006. In relation to post modernism
era, the teachers of English are required to apply a strategy in which the students are not regarded as the object of learning. Riddell 2003 says that knowing subject is not
enough to be a successful English teacher. The teachers should be able to give interesting lesson, be passionate, and encourage students make progress. Doing it so
makes English learning activity as the process by which students ‟ experience
changes not only in cognitive ability but also in behavior, knowledge, and skills which come about through practice and instruction.
Learning emphasizes on development, thinking process, active process, and making decision. Hutchinson in Jordan 1997 quotes learning a language is not
merely a matter of linguistics knowledge. However, some teachers still believe that the goal of learning is that students are able to do a test correctly. To minimize the
impact of this belief, there are some techniques teachers may use, i.e. pair and group work to minimize the stress of speaking in front of the whole class, structure tasks to
enable learners to show what they do know rather than what they do not, give
learners time to think and work out answers, put more emphasis on the progress of getting the answer rather than the product of the right answer, and make interest, fun,
and variety primary considerations in the design of tasks and activities, not just an added bonus.
Facing the reality, there is sometimes misconception that the main goal of learning English is not for communication in some countries including Indonesia.
Smith 1976, then, makes further assumption which provides pedagogical basis for learning an international language as cited in McKay 2002:12. The assumption is
“learners of an international language do not need to internalize the cultural norms of native speakers of that language
”. Afterwards, the ownership of an international language becomes filtered into educational goal of learning an international language
is to enable learners to communicate their ideas and culture to others. This assumption influences the concept of English instruction in Indonesia which starts at
very beginning level; very young learner until adult learner. As one of the education program, teaching of English in junior high school has
some special characteristics. Firstly, teaching English to JHS students should consider the cognitive aspects and psychological development of the transition mass.
Secondly, Indonesian government campaign on character education should be integrated in the instruction. Thirdly, English instruction should refer to curriculum
dynamic. In some references, there several teaching methods, approaches, and techniques
mentioned. Langer et al. 2000: 3 argue some features of effective English instruction. Firstly, have “students learn skills and knowledge in multiple lesson
types ”, In other words, teachers assign integrated tasks or activities in the purposed
context to bring skills and knowledge together. Secondly, “teachers integrate test
preparation into instruction ”. Teachers as the main board in giving instruction
cooperate with principals and district-level coordinators working together collaboratively to identify the blueprints of particular tests and then integrate
demanded skills and knowledge into the instruction. Thirdly, “teachers make
connections across instruction, curriculum, and life ”. This technique is similar to
content based instruction CBI. Teachers build web connection among subject and students‟ daily life. Fourthly, “students learn strategies for doing the work”. The
advantage of this feature is able to develop students‟ autonomy and meta-cognition simultaneously. What teachers need to do are dividing tasks into segments and
providing guiding strategies to do and think a number of works. Fifthly, “students are
expected to be generative thinkers ”. As Krashen‟s theory on comprehensible input,
teachers provide tasks slightly beyond students‟ present competence which stimulate
students‟ creativity and critical knowledge and skills. Sixthly, “classrooms promote cognitive collaboration
”. In this condition, students are not used to work individually but engaged in teamwork. They are expected to bring their personal, cultural, and
academic knowledge into interaction that they are able to think particular issues from multiple perspectives.
Another idea is proposed by Allison and Rehm 2007. They report several sequences of effective teaching strategies based on their research toward middle
school in multicultural and multilingual classrooms. It is stated that the most effective teaching strategy falls upon using visual. It includes the use of teaching aids
and pictures. The following teaching strategy is assigning peer tutoring that promotes communication, motivates students, and facilitates learners accomplish higher levels
of achievement simultaneously developing friendship among students. The third strategy is conducting cooperative learning. Crandall 1999 cites that cooperative
learning benefits to problem solving tasks and build teamwork while students enhance literacy and language acquisition. Besides, cooperative learning facilitates
intellectual autonomy since students interact and collaborate with friends to success a task. In terms of evaluation, using strategy in form of alternative modes of
assessment is seen as an effective strategy. The modes may consist of projects, exhibitions, journals, demonstrations, observations, and portfolio.
Besides considering techniques and strategies to teach JHS students effectively, it is necessary to discuss character education in this part. The ideal of
integrating character education is derived from Rencana Aksi Nasional Pendidikan Karakter 2010
which states that character education is elaborated into value, behavior, and moral education to develop students‟ ability in making a decision and
controlling behavior in daily life accordingly. The characters are derived from the values of religion, Pancasila, culture, and national education goal. These include 1
religious, 2 honest, 3 tolerance, 4 discipline, 5 work hard,6 creative, 7 independent, 8 democratic, 9 curiosity, 10 the spirit of nationality, 11 love the
country, 12 rewarding achievement, 13 friendly communicative, 14 love of peace, 15 joy of reading, 16 care for the environment, 17 social care, and 18
responsibility.
Dealing with curriculum dynamic, nowadays there are two kinds of curriculums used as guidance in English instruction in Indonesia, i.e. Curriculum
2006 and Curriculum of 2013. A number of schools starts implementing Curriculum of 2013 in the form of pilot implementation and the rest still use Curriculum 2006.
Based on standard of content 2006, there are three purposes of English teaching and learning in junior high school level. The first is to develop communicative
competence either in spoken or written form to achieve functional literacy level. The second purpose is to develop students‟ awareness on the nature and significance of
English to improve competitive power in global society. The last is to develop students‟ understanding of the relationship between nation and culture.
Differently, as this year Curriculum of 2013 is still implemented as a pilot program, the focus is for grade seven of JHS. There are four core competences to
reach in Curriculum of 2013. The first core competence is religious behavior; responding and implementing religious value based on students‟ religion. The
second is social behavior; respecting attitude honest, discipline, responsible, care, polite, curious, confident, tolerant, internal motivation, healthy life pattern, and
environmentally sound in interacting effectively with social environment and nature in the scope and existence. The third core competence is knowledge; understanding
knowledge factual, conceptual, and procedural in science, technology, art, culture, and humanism with concept of religion, nation, nationality, and civilization about
visible phenomena and occurrences. The last core competence is skill; trying, managing, and presenting various things in concrete domain using, analyzing,
stringing up, modifying, and making and abstract domain writing, reading,
counting, drawing, and composing based on what students learn at school and from theoretically related various resources.
In conclusion, teaching English for junior high school students requires English teachers to condition the uniqueness of transition mass into interesting
package. The first, cognitive aspects and psychological development of JHS students in general are in transition of being a kid to being adult which require teachers to
assign more teamwork project based learning instead of individual assignment. From character education point of view, teachers are required to integrate more
values into instruction content materials and activity to guide the transition mass of JHS students on the right value. Regarding curriculum dynamic, teachers are
required to keep the instruction appropriately to reach the goal in curriculum. In Curriculum 2006, the standard of content is analyzed into functional literacy
competence, global competitive power, and national culture goal. Meanwhile the core competence in Curriculum of 2013 is formulated into religion, social behavior,
knowledge, and skill.
2.2 Related Studies
In this part, I reviewed some related studies concerning in the similar fields. The foci are varied into teacher perception of classroom talk and teachers questions
and follow up in IRF initiating, responding, follow up sequence. A study conducted by Hartanto 2010 concerns teacher perception of
classroom talk at vocational school. He finds that classroom talk by teacher can be perceived as a kind of tool that conveys teachers‟ teaching activities such as “asking
