Characteristics of Elementary School Students
34
activities provide many opportunities for learning and development Henniger, 2009. With careful planning and preparation of the activities, children have rich
and memorable experience there. Through the outdoor activities, students can use real communication and
spontaneous speech; one of the examplesis going to the Perjuangan museum. The spoken language in this activity was all around the history of Indonesian heroes,
how they were struggling for freedom. In line with this, students could learn history integrated with speaking and listening. They listened to the teacher‟s
explanation about the history and discussed the tasks given in their groups. In this case, teacher controls the topic but not the activity; it occurs when the teacher
gave them tasks to be discussed in groups. They didn‟t discuss it by sitting in a circle like formal discussion; instead they could go all around the museum to find
the answer of the questions. The students looked relax and enjoy the activities during the indoor and
outdoor program. They did not have to sit down nicely in the classroom while listening
to the teacher‟s lecturing, and they did not have to write and memorize any formulaic tenses of language structures in the monotonous classroom
atmosphere. Yet, they practiced the language in the situational context. They experienced the language in use. They were communicating rather than practicing
language. Here, the teacher had a role as a model and as the source of language
exposure. Beside teacher, they also learnt from other friends since they were required to communicate in English.
35