62 developing quiz or test,
Jalu now was aware to consider his students‟ ability. Therefore, he made quiz which was feasible for all of the students but challenging.
Before I make the quiz, I have to make sure what is going to be assessed. I check the basic competence, the standard competence, and the indicators
first before making the quiz. Then, based on the basic competence, the standard competence, and the indicators, I developed quiz which is
feasible for the students whose ability is the least, but challenging at some points for the students whose ability is the most.
Interview3_J21
7. Meeting with ‘special’ kids
Special kids in the participants‟ stories were those who were the trouble makers and who had different learning ability in learning English than other
students in the class. Their initial in- service teaching opened Kiki and Jalu‟s mind
that a real language classroom consists of various children with their own uniqueness. In the real language classroom, they faced children with their real
characteristics which far different from the embellishment of the children image. They found that children were not always nice, kind, cheerful, and friendly
because they sometimes might turn to be very difficult to be controlled. The most difficult situation experienced by Jalu and Kiki in their initial years of teaching
was meeting with the “trouble makers”. Both of them got terribly stressed when the class was in chaos.
Kiki had ever experienced her class turned to be like a jungle as her students shouted and wandered here and there. The unforgettable part of teaching
in the jungle was when one of her students embraced her legs and then he licked them. That boy was pretended to be a dog. Kiki was then in difficulties to released
herself from that boy. Though, she already mustered up her energy to ask that boy
63 to get her free, to go back to his place, and to continue to study, it was useless.
Likewise, asking the students to be quiet was not easy since they would stop making noise only for a while.
The same classroom situation was also experienced by Jalu. He described his class as in chaos. One of his students had ever hid the LCD remote control in
his uniform pocket. It was very difficult for Jalu to persuade that boy to return that remote control. When Jalu tried to ask that boy to return the remote control, the
rest of the class then became very noisy. Other terrible experience with that boy was when suddenly he climbed up Jalu‟s back when Jalu was taking something on
the floor. The trouble maker in Kiki and Jalu‟s class often became the impetus of the
class noisiness. When the class was very noisy and hard to be controlled, indeed the teaching and learning process did not run smoothly. Sometimes, the teaching
objectives could not be achieved too. This kind of situation made Kiki and Jalu felt stressed. They did not know how to cope with this problem.
Knowing Kiki and Jalu‟s difficulties in classroom management, the school principal and his vice supported Kiki and Jalu by supervising the class when they
were teaching and encouraging them to survive though it was difficult. Kiki told me that
Because my class was always very noisy and hard to be controlled, the school principal stayed in the class when I was teaching. When the school
principal was with us in the class, the students were not very noisy because they were afraid of him. The school principal stayed in my class
when I was teaching because I could not control the class and I was too delicate to students at that time.
Interview3_K26
64 Actually Kiki realized that being accompanied by the school principal
when she was teaching in the class was not the effective way to solve her problem. Thus it made her stressed in finding the remedy for it.
Different from Kiki who was being supervised by the school principal, Jalu‟s got suggestion from the vice principal to read a book entitled “Nanny 911”
to learn how to handle children. However, he had not found the suitable strategy or technique from “Nanny 911” which matched with his situation and himself.
Besides suggestion from the vice principal, Jalu also got encouragements from the school principals who often visited him in his office during his free time to ask
about his feeling and how things went so far. Besides receiving support from the school principal and his vice, Kiki and
Jalu were also seeking for others‟ suggestions by sharing their problems to other teachers. However, sharing their problems to other teachers did not help them to
find the solution to remedy their problem with the chaos in the classroom because they still needed to find their own strategies to handle their class. Kiki revealed
that each teacher had their own style and she could not just adopt one of them to solve her problem. She needed to find her own style which suitable with her
students and her characteristics.
When I told my problem to other teachers, they only told me their methodologies
. One said, “My method is like this…” Another said, “Mine is like this…” The next teacher also said, “Mine is like this…” Each
teacher has their own style in handling the class. For example, a teacher whose characteristic is grumpy tends to be very strict to the students.
However, I could not suddenly change my style becomes very strict like that teacher. I could not adopt that style and applied it in my class because
the students will be reluctant to me. It made me confused in choosing the right ways to handle my students. I had ever tried so many styles in order
65
to find the one which worked best and was suitable with my characteristic
Interview3_K32 Likewise, Jalu also experienced the same thing with Kiki. He revealed that
I had ever asked my colleagues who stayed in the same office with me and who were mostly female about how to handle noisy class. Then they told
me their ways in handling that kind of situation, “To face that kind of situation the strategies are this ... th
is … and this …”. Another teacher even shared her similar experience with me and how she handled it, “Sir, I
also have the same experience with you in my initial year of teaching”. Then she shared her experience and her knowledge in handling noisy class.
… some strategies could be adopted, some are modified, and some need further consideration. I need to consider those strategies with my
characteristics, whether it is suitable or not. I need to adjust it with myself. For example, I am a delicate person and I definitely cannot be
grumpy to children. Therefore I cannot adopt the strategy from teacher whose characteristic is grumpy and who are able to bring themselves to be
grumpy to children. Because of that I need to think about my own strategies to handle my class.
Interview2_J43-J44 Besides meeting with the trouble makers, these novice teachers also met
with students who had different ability in learning English than other students. Both Kiki and Jalu identified students who did not perform as well as other
students in each of their class. Those students were having lower ability than others. Moreover, those students had difficulties in paying attention and
concentration. Kiki experienced meeting two students who was then revealed having
lower ability than others. The first student was having difficulties in understanding commands, instructions, and sentences in English. Therefore, this
student could not give respond to the teacher correctly in English. When this student was being asked about something in English, she could not respond it.
This student would usually answer the question by uttering “Hee…”, “Mmm …”,
66 or “What?”. Apart from her weakness in understanding commands, instructions,
and sentences, this little girl could mention vocabulary well but still her spelling still incorrect sometimes. For her achievement in doing English task or exercise,
this student could score more than KKM but could not get high score. However, Kiki found it absurd because this student could not get the same score in doing the
same exercise with the same questions which being reordered its sequence. Furthermore this student also liked to lose her concentration, to play by herself in
the middle of the lesson, and suddenly laughed without any reasons. Another Kiki‟s student who then was revealed having problem in learning
was a boy who performed slower than others. At first, Kiki did not realize that this boy was „special‟ until his parent came and told Kiki that his note was not
complete and messy. Then Kiki noticed that this boy was slow in writing and processing information in his mind, and in recalling the lesson. For example,
copying Kiki‟s note from the white board to his own note book, he needed longer time than his friends. In doing exercises he could only understand and do 5
numbers while the others do 10 numbers. Jalu also experienced meeting a student who has different ability than
other students. He found a student whose English proficiency was not at the same level with other students. This student was the one who hid the LCD remote
control. Besides having lower ability than others, this boy was also very lazy and liked to work hastily. Because of that he often got bad scored and needed to take
remedial.
67 Meeting with students, who had different ability than others, provoked
Kiki and Jalu to find a way to help those students to perform better. In finding ways for her „special‟ students, Kiki tried to find the ways by herself, to
communicate with the parents, and to ask suggestions from colleagues and school principal. Different from Kiki, Jalu did not ask suggestion from his colleagues and
did not communicate the problem to the parent, but found his own way to deal with his „special‟ student.
Previously, Kiki thought that her „special‟ student, who had difficulties in understanding and responding to commands, instructions, and sentences in
English, needed extra explanation than other students. But then, when she shared this problem to other teachers, it was revealed than other teachers also had the
same problem with that girl. Even for other subjects delivered in Indonesian such as Bahasa Indonesia and PKN, this „special‟ student also could not understand the
lesson well. Since other teachers also experienced the same problem like her, Kiki had an initiative to communicate this problem with the parents. However, the
parents particularly the „special‟ student‟s mom insisted that her daughter did not have any problem in learning. The mother said that when she taught her daughter
at home, she could understand and do the exercise well. This made Kiki suspected the „special‟ students‟ mom was having different style in teaching. Kiki suspected
the mother was teaching her daughter in Bahasa Indonesia not in English. Besides that, Kiki also suspected this student‟s age which was younger than her friends as
one of the cause. Kiki guessed that this student‟s was not in the same intellectual
68 and psychological development stages with other students so that she could not
perform like them. Since this problem with Kiki‟s „special‟ students was not only Kiki‟s own
problem but the entire teachers, the school principal got involve in finding ways to help this student. The school principal assigned the teachers to give tutorial to this
student for subjects in which she scored less than KKM . Since this „special‟
student‟s English score was not below the KKM, Kiki did not have to give her tutorial.
Though Kiki did not need to give this „special‟ student tutorial, she still needed to find a way to help this student to perform better in her class. Because
this girl was difficult to concentrate and to focus on the lesson, Kiki paid more attention to her. Kiki always monitored her, reminded her to listen, and hooked
her up to the lesson. Kiki changed her way to remind this student to pay attention and to listen to the lesson became more firmly than before. In hooking this student
up to the lesson, Kiki liked to ask questions related to the lesson again and again. Furthermore, Kiki liked to put this girl with brighter students in the class when
doing group task. Though sometimes the brighter students did not want to be in the same group with this „special‟ girl, Kiki forced them to do so. By putting this
„special‟ student in the same group with brighter students, Kiki hoped it would help her to learn from the brighter students.
In handling Kiki‟s student who was slow in writing and processing information in his mind, and in recalling the lesson, she found her own way. To
increase this student speed in writing, Kiki liked to encourage this boy to write
69 fast. Then, Kiki usually gave him less portion in copying examples than his
friends. In doing task or exercise, Kiki also gave him less portion than his friends. Kiki let him doing half of the total numbers. She decided to do it because Kiki
thought that it was better for him to do half of the total numbers and understood it rather than do all of the numbers but did not understand at all.
Similar with Kiki, in handling his „special‟ student who has lower ability than others, was lazy, and liked to work hastily, Jalu also found his own way.
Because Jalu knew that this boy liked to do the test hastily and scored bad, Jalu gave the remedial test orally. In other words, Jalu switched his way by testing the
students orally. When this boy was tested orally, he could achieve full point. Even though he already found his way to deal with this problem, Jalu still
communicated this boy‟s problem with the class teacher so that the class teacher could inform it to the parents. Since this boy was very lazy, he even slept during
the lesson time. This kind of behavior needed to be reported to the parents to the class teacher. Hopefully by having communication with the class teacher and
parents, this student could be helped to be more diligent in the class and careful in doing tasks.
8. Reminding and encouraging students to speak English
