Learners’ Roles Types of Teaching Learning Activity Based on the Natural Method

The technique used in the classroom will be suited to the condition of the class. It will depend on the learners’ level, the objective of the lesson, and the material given. However, there are distinctive features of the teaching learning activities in the Natural Method. In summary, the techniques practiced in the class as proposed by Krashen and Terrell 1983 and Richards and Rodgers 1986 are as follow. 1. The teacher speaks in the target language to provide much comprehensible input. 2. The language used in the class should be simple, and use “here and now” principle. The vocabulary taught is daily vocabulary and things around them. 3. The vocabulary taught is repeated over and over while talking naturally. 4. The teacher can show the real object of the word, use gesture and demonstration to make the meaning comprehensible. Whatever helps comprehension is important. Visual aids are useful. 5. Teacher talk begins with TPR Total Physical Response. The students respond physically to the teacher order. 6. Teacher talk should be like foreigner talk. Foreigner talk is characterized by a slower rate of speech, repetition, restating, use YesNo instead of Wh- questions, and other changes that make messages more comprehensible to person of limited language proficiency. 7. Students are not expected to use a word actively until they have heard it many times After the students are ready to talk and familiar with the words, the teacher encourages the students to produce words 8. The teacher doesn’t force the students to speak if they are not ready for it. 9. In order to lower the affective filter, student work should center on meaningful communication rather than on form, input should be interesting and contribute to a relaxed classroom atmosphere. 10. Producing errors is considered normal. Hence, errors are tolerated in the early learning. In all these activities, the instructor maintains a constant flow of “comprehensible input”, using key vocabulary item, gesture, mime, context, repetition, and paraphrase to ensure the comprehensibility of the input.

4. Kindergarten Curriculum

The curriculum to teach English as foreign language to Kindergarten Students in this research is drawn from the Curriculum 2004 Standar Kompetensi from Departemen Pendidikan Nasional. The curriculum is modified because there is no specific language competency to teach a foreign language. However, this curriculum is used as the major source with some modification suited to the students’ competencies because in the children learning language, the process of foreignsecond language is similar to the first one. The indicators in the curriculum are modified because the students haven’t acquired English as they have acquired their first language even the list of vocabulary. For example, the students will not be required to retell a short story as it is stated in the standard curriculum. The following is the modified curriculum made by the writer which consists of goal, competencies, indicators, and evaluation.