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one way to contribute supportive situation to all students in class. Sometimes they used Javanese which was their mother tongue. In this case, the writer avoided the
use of Javanese by allowing them to use Bahasa Indonesia when they felt difficult in finding words to express ideas, since it was the formal academic area.
In this study, it was found that there were five types of scaffolding implemented in English conversation class, as proposed by Roehler and Cantlon
1997. Therefore, the writer divided the discussion into five sub units, namely: 1 offering explanation; 2 inviting students’ participation; 3 verifying and
clarifying students understandings; 4 modeling of desired behaviors; and 5 inviting students to contribute clues.
a. Offering Explanation
The first type of scaffolding that was found in this classroom was the offering of explanations. In this situation, Roehler and Cantlon 1997 explain that
the teacher provided the students with clear and explicit explanation to avoid students from being confused or misunderstanding and also to direct their focus
on the material given p. 17. Explanation statements were provided in order to adjust what emerged to students’ understanding about the knowledge they were
going to learn, the purpose of the learning, the time they could apply the knowledge, and also the procedure and the application of the knowledge. It was to
prepare the students to go further and deeper to the material they were going to learn.
The first explanation that was provided occurred in the first activity in the English Conversation class. The first activity to be done was a non-verbal
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warming-up activity. The writer explained some procedures to be followed by the students. The language used was bilingual, sometimes used Bahasa, and
sometimes used English. It aimed to accommodate all students to be able to follow the instructions and also to be familiar and get used to English in their
daily life. The writer led the students to rise from their seat and stand-up. They placed themselves in every aisle, or wherever they could find an empty space, as
long as they could move freely without touching and disturbing each other. It was done to prepare the students to go into the main topic that was going to be learned
that time. Since the writer asked the students to be involved in a drama or role play activity, the warming-up activity was the one element that could bring the
students to an atmosphere of role play. Firstly, the first explanation occurred when the writer gave instructions to
follow the steps of warming-up activity. However, the writer had not given the explanation about the purpose of the activity or what were they going to do to
initiate the activity, in order to stimulate their curiosity and their ideas. The students were let to grow their own thought about the purpose of the initial
activity and to analyze what activity was going to do next before the writer
explained it to them clearly.
Teacher: Today, we’re going to do something different. Maybe you haven’t done this activity in your English regular class before.
Before we go to our main topic today, I’ll ask you to do a warming up activity. What is warming up in Bahasa?
Class: Pemanasan. Teacher: Yes, right. Pemanasan. What kind of warming up activity
today? Let’s do it. Now, choose one friend as your partner. …
Has everyone got one partner?
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Okay, do you know the activity of mirror hands? Have you ever heard before?
Few students: No. Other
students: Yes. Bercermin.
Teacher: Ya, kita bercermin. Partner kalian, satu orang menjadi cermin, satunya menjadi orang yang bercermin. Misalnya, taking one
student to be model while showing the example on how to do the activity. Put your hands around your shoulders, like this, with
your palms open. Jadi, telapak tangannya dibuka. Don’t do anything. Belum ada instruksi apapun. Choose one of you to be
the leader, and then, the rest to be the mirror. Jadi, jangan sampai bersentuhan. Don’t touch each other. Just face like this,
face your friends’ palms. Misalnya saya leader, dia student mirror. Pada saat saya bergerak ke mana, ikuti terus. Bisa? Can
you do this? While you are doing this, please close your mouth and then, just focus to your friends’ palms. Fokus sama telapak
tangan temanmu. Jangan lihat mukanya, lihat telapak tangannya. Bisa?
From the transcription above, it can be seen that the writer opened the class by introducing the first activity that was going to do. As what have been said
before, the writer told the activity was about, instead of explaining the goal of doing such activity. The teacher gave an explicit statement that they were going to
do “mirror hands” as the warming-up activity. While the teacher informed what the activity was about, she looked around the class to observe if the students were
familiar with the activity of “mirror hands” or not. The teacher explained what “mirror hands” was about by directly modeling on what the activity looked like.
Interpreting from English to Bahasa is also one way to explain to students since there were still few students who could not catch every English word said by the
teacher. That is why the use of Bahasa was not avoided, even though it must be minimized. The use of English was still the priority. The explanation was given
when the teacher described the procedures on how to do the “mirror hands”
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activity. The writer simply explained and showed the procedures step by step in both English and Bahasa. It meets the statements cited by Roehler and Cantlon
1997: Explanations are explicit statements adjusted to fit the learners’
emerging understandings about what is being learned declarative or prepositional knowledge, why and when it is used conditional and
situational knowledge, and how it is used procedural knowledge Duffy, Roehler, Meloth, Vavrus, 1986; Paris, Lipson, Wixson,
1983. The next activity done in the class was a non-verbal cooling-down activity.
The students were asked to do breathing activity in which they had to relax their mind and body and follow the instructions.
Teacher: Slowly close your eyes Relax your body Okay, now take a deep breath Feel the air Release Take a deep breath again
One, two, three, release Do these over and over until you feel relax. Empty your mind. Don’t think anything …
Now, take a deep breath, and then when you release the air please say aaaaaaaaaaaa…. Ready Tarik nafas dalam-dalam,
satu, dua, tiga, lalu keluarkan nafas sambil mengucapkan aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa… long a okay. Wait for my instruction.
Take a deep breath One, two, three, release Take a deep breath One, two, three, release Take a deep breath One, two,
three, release Still say aaaaaaaaaaaa … Bernafas seperti biasa saja tapi yang enak. Tidak usah bersuara. …
And now, slowly open your eyes. Slowly open your eyes.
From the transcription above, the teacher gave brief instructions to the students while the students listened to and followed the instructions carefully. The
first phase of instructions was given in English with a clear and slow voice so the students could understand and practice them well. The vocabularies used were
simple and familiar. However, to avoid any misunderstanding, the teacher needed to insert a little use of Bahasa, but the use of English dominated most of the
instructions delivered. When delivering the instructions, the writer observed the
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situation of the class. It seemed that all the students could follow and practice the instructions well. It means that most of them could understand every English word
said. The following transcription below also shows that the writer implemented the scaffolding type of offering explanation.
Teacher: Ini fungsinya supaya kita bisa rileks, supaya kita bisa fokus, to the next activity. Tadi siapa yang tertawa? Ada yang benar-
benar rileks? Few students: Yes, ada.
Teacher: Kalau misalnya kita benar-benar melakukannya enak ya rasanya ya. Biar oksigen itu masuk. Pasti terasa ya, kalau yang
“ah, biasa aja ah” itu berarti tidak fokus sama sekali. Sudah pernah melakukan ini sebelumnya? Dalam acara apapun?
Students: Sudah sering. The writer gave a brief explanation about the purpose of doing the initial
session named “getting ready” session. The writer decided not to give the explanation of doing such activity in the beginning because the writer wanted to
ask the students to independently analyze the reason they doing the activity, before in the end of the first session activity, the writer would give the brief
explanation to verify or clarify their understanding.
b. Inviting Students’ Participation
