Criticizing or Justifying authority

4.2.1.4.3 Criticizing or Justifying authority

The second variable in the teacher control pattern is criticizing or justifying authority function. This variable as the less dominance variable compare to giving direction variable. It is representing 28 or equal with 15 utterance from total utterance found in 4 times observation. From the result, it can be see that the teacher spent a little time in criticizing or justifying activity. As cited in Hai bee 2007, Flanders assumed that teacher is the influential authority in the classroom, because teacher’s talk and what he says determiners to large the reaction of the students. Statement intends to change student behavior from non-acceptable to acceptable behavior. The expressions used by the students and teacher are clearly shown in the following excerpt. Extract 4.19 S :”I want to spread more butter” 2048 T:”Could you please repeat your question?” The situation was, a student expressed what she wanted to do. In extract 4.19, the teacher cannot hear the student s’ voice clearly. The result of observation showed that student’s seat position was away from the teacher. In addition, the teacher was busy to help others students to make sandwich. As soon after that, the teacher was providing a justifying utterances. The t eacher says “Could you please repeat your question?” so that the teacher can listen once more to the student ideas. Michael Long 2004 suggests that acquisition takes place best in a setting in which meaning is negotiated through interaction. It was suggested to the teacher that early attention must focus on providing student with the ability to communicate messages such as “I don’t understand,” “Could you please repeat that?” “Could you please speak louder?” Extract 4.20 T: “It is ok if you want to take in the floor first. So it would not be disturbed you because we need to do something with the paper” S: “Yes” 4047 In the observation result the conversation in extract 4.20 occurred when the teacher criticized the student’s behavior in class. The conversation was in end of the discussion time, the teacher asked students to make space shuttle. The condition was students had to put the colorful paper in a bottle, some of students were busy playing with the bottle. To deal with those kind situation, the teacher asked them to take in the floor first, in order to shift their attention on cutting the paper. Yanfen and Yuqin 2010 stated “instruction means and authoritative direction to be obeyed”. In the conversation, teacher told the students to do stop specific action. Since, teacher had an authority to control over the interaction and class activity. According to conversation in extract 4.19 up to 4.20, there were two conditions or context when the teacher criticized student’s behavior. The first condition, when the teacher wanted for students did something. In this case was to speak louder, the purpose was to make sure student’s opinion clear enough to be listened by the teacher and the others students. The example was in extract 4.29. The second condition was, when the teacher criticize the student improper behavior. The goal was to bring students back focus on the lesson. The example was in extract 4.20. Finally, it indicated that criticizing was not always negative. It can be positive also, to create comprehensible condition for PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI students to acquire target language. In classroom interaction the teacher usually controls the topic and the amount of attention that each student receive and allocated turns Erickson, 2004. Sometimes sequence-closing of feedback F is not enough, the teacher is able to provide kind of warning both in educating and controlling the classroom. The criticizing made the class became a supportive and comprehensible place for the teaching and learning process. Since, the students were able to get input easily from the teacher in form of critique and justification. A teacher had an authority to give her students a positive or negative feedback depend on the students’ learning performance. In the context of classroom relationship between the teacher and students. It was common for the teacher being authority to control all aspects in class. Finally, teacher responsibility was to control the interaction flowing smoothly and efficiently. Interview transcription 4.18 “Usually we know that they understand my justification by observing their behavior. For example in the class discussion there is certain student who busy with her shoes, hair or book. As a teacher I will criticize her by saying “Leona, are you want to play outside or listen to me? After that the student should stop her activity and listen to the teacher. But if not I will give more action such as ask her to play outside for 5 minutes . Interview transcription 4.19 “The kindergarten students are considering old enough. In the beginning the lesson we have already discusses the rule in the classroom. So when the student act misbehavior during the class teacher will remind them about the rule” From the interview transcription 4.18 and 4.19 above it can be seen that the teacher criticizes a student in order to control the student behavior in class. According to the teacher if there was a student did non-acceptable behavior. The teacher would criticize them in several stages. The first stage was justify the student behavior by questioning, the second stage was justify st udent’s behavior by giving option, keep doing those behavior or go out the classroom. The last stage, asked them to go outside the class for 5 minutes in order to give students time to think about their mistake. The interesting finding about “punishment” was the teacher called back the student to join the class and pretend nothing happened. The teacher said that after students get the ‘punishment” they would realize their mistake. The point, in the same time the teacher were able to control student non-acceptable behavior and the teacher asked the student back to join the class without judging them as bad student. The conclusion of teacher control pattern related to classroom interaction. The teacher was the leader of the classroom. The teacher control the interaction but not dominated the interaction. The teacher was as the one who kept the conversation on the right topic. Finally, the teacher control all her utterances, students’ talk and classroom engagement since the learner was still in young ages. The teachers’ guidance was still needed.

4.3 Types of Student talk and Teacher Interaction

The classroom interaction is seen as one of the primary aspect leading successful teaching learning process. The interaction between teacher and student will be go smoothly when teacher talk and student talk is completing each other to create comprehensible input and produce meaningful output for the students. The table below presents both teacher talk and student talk found in learning activities of Ananda Mentari Kindergarten School Jogjakarta.