The Role of Teacher and Learners

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3. The Role of Teacher and Learners

Richards and Rodgers in their Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching 2001 have discussed the role of teacher and learners in relation with CBI. In their book, it was clearly stated that the ideal roles of learners in CBI are as active interpreters of input, who are seen as autonomous beings responsible for their own learning process. The students in international class of SMAN 3 Yogyakarta had realized and implemented their roles as autonomous learners and their learning process was their own responsibility. This is because the teacher never gave the explanation on the language use although they had provided enough exposure on the target language. For their consequences as autonomous learners, the students subconsciously learned and acquired the target language by using English as a mean to gather information they had from the modules or handouts or to write their reports in Science class. But the students’ role as active interpreters of input had not been fulfilled yet. This was because the lecturing activities in the international class of SMAN 3 had the teacher-centred characteristic. This teaching characteristic put the students as passive learners in the teaching-learning activities. In this teaching characteristic, the students’ role was only aimed to provide the most acceptable and satisfying answer for the teacher’s questions. Brinton et. al. 1989 suggested that in the implementation of CBI, the most ideal part for the teacher is as the facilitator of the content learning. Unfortunately, this particular role was hardly ever found in the international class of SMAN 3 Yogyakarta. In their ideal role, teachers as facilitator of content learning had to take responsibility in keeping content and comprehensibility, 46 creating a learner-centred class, and also analyzing students’ needs. But, on the observation, the researcher did not see the implementation of these ideal roles. The researcher found out the fact that the teachers and the visiting lecturers in international class of SMAN 3 focused on the material delivery. Hence, they were obliged only to deliver the material to the students. They never helped and provide chances for students to utilize the target language during the teaching-learning activities although supporting students’ acquisition of target language was one of their roles. Almost 100 of classroom activities in the international class of SMAN 3 were executed in Indonesian, and teachers or lecturers rarely supported students to use English to ask or answer questions. Considering the teachers’ role to provide a learner-centred class characteristic, the researcher has not found the fulfilment of this role by the teachers and the visiting lecturers in international class of SMAN 3 Yogyakarta. The common teaching-learning activities in that class were lecturing, where the teachers or visiting lecturers deliver the materials in front of the class, literally. Teachers considered the class finished when they could deliver all the materials targeted for that day. The role of the students was occurred only on asking or answering questions but they did not have encouragement to use English in class. Teachers also have to be good example to employ the target language, along with their position as the classroom facilitators. In reality, both teachers and lecturers did not serve as ideal role models for the students in their English grammar and pronunciation. This was because the visiting lecturers who were supposed to be able to teach in the target language failed to do their job because of 47 their lack of English pronunciation proficiency. Subconsciously, the problems experienced by the teachers in their pronunciation, might be dangerous for the students. The students would tend to imitate the wrong examples given by the teachers and bring them to the incorrect English pronunciation. Moreover, the use of incorrect grammar and careless code switching to Indonesian by the teachers was seen as evidence that the teachers did not have enough competence in the target language. This insufficient competence made the teachers unable to play as good role models.

4. Comprehensible Input and Material Design