TEACHING ENGLISH TO YOUNG LEARNERS: BELIEFS AND PRACTICES:A Case Study of the English Teachers of the Public Elementary Schools in Bandung Kulon Sub-District.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

LIST OF TABLES x

LIST OF FIGURE xi

LIST OF APPENDICES xii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background 1

1.2 Research Questions 5

1.3 Research Goals 5

1.4 Significance of the Study 6

1.5 Definitions of the Terms 6

1.6 Organization of the Study 6

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 8

2.1 Teachers’ Beliefs 8

2.2 Characteristics of Young Learners 11

2.3 Learning Theories 15

2.3.1 Behaviorism 15

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2.3.2 Multiple intelligences 26 2.4 Teaching Implications for Helping Children to Learn English 28

2.4.1 Teaching methods for young learners 28

2.4.2 Other elements of teaching English to young learners 32

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY 43

3.1 Research Design 43

3.2 Setting of the Study 44

3.3 Participants of the Study 45

3.4 Stages of the Study 46

3.5 Data Collection 48

3.6 Data Analysis 51

3.7 Validity Issues 52

3.7.1 Validity threats 52

3.7.2 Validity tests 53

CHAPTER 4 DATA PRESENTATIONS AND DISCUSSIONS 56 4.1 Data Presentation and Discussion from Questionnaire 57 4.1.1 The participants’ beliefs of children’s characteristics 57 4.1.2 The participants’ beliefs of children’s ways of learning 61

4.2 Data Presentation and Discussion Observations 69

4.3 Data Presentation and Discussion Interviews 85

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATION FOR FURTHER STUDY

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5.2 Recommendation for Further Study 93

REFERENCES 95

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Different Characteristics Younger and Older Children 12 Table 2.2 Piaget’s Stages of cognitive Development 21

Table 2.3 Wood’s Scaffolding 25

Table 4.1 The Activities in The Participants Classes 75 Table 4.2 The Steps Carried out by the Participants 77

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LIST OF FIGURE

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LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix 1 Angket untuk Guru-Guru Bahasa Inggris 95

Appendix 2 Data from the Questionnaire 103

Appendix 3 Observation List 111

Appendix 4 Classroom Observation Checklist 141

Appendix 5 Interview with the Participants 161

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter discusses the background of the study, the research questions, the research goals, and the significance of the study. In addition, some definitions of specific terms and the organization of the study are also presented.

1.1 Background

When a teacher stands in front of the class and starts teaching, i.e. accommodating students with a set of planned activities, he bears certain beliefs within himself. In relation to teaching children, what he believes about how children learn affects what activities he develops to be administered in his class. In other words, the way he creates conditions for learning through planning, management and responses to his students is determined by his beliefs and assumptions (Moon, 2004).

One of the factors that require consideration in teaching is the students’ age. Teachers of young learners should be aware of the age of their students and make the best out of it. It is to consider when designing teaching and learning activities in the classroom. Activities in the classroom are to be adjusted to the students’ characteristics in order to achieve the success of the learning. Consequently, during the lesson a good scenario that involves consideration of the characteristics of a certain age group, young children, is believed to promote students’ motivation in learning (Harmer, 1999: 8).

Teachers of English need to consider their students’ age which supports the basis of their teaching practices and materials, including media. Recognizing their

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students’ characteristics would enrich their knowledge on how to deal with their students with certain age. Teachers would take the factor of the students’ age into account in formulating a topic to deliver, starting from the learning objectives, activities, media, and assessment. Harmer (2001) claimed that people of different ages have different needs, competence, and cognitive skills. Thus, by being aware of the children’s development of learning, teachers will be better in providing appropriate learning experiences for their students (Linse, 2005).

The focus of the study is to investigate what teachers believe about their students’ characteristics and way of learning in public elementary schools. There are some points that are accounted as misunderstandings of teachers towards young children, as stated by Cameron (2001), in her book Teaching Languages to Young Learners. These false assumptions include that teaching children is straightforward and that children only need to learn simple language. The first assumption refers to teaching children seen as an extension of mothering, not as an intellectual enterprise. And, the latter claims that the topics (the teaching materials) for teaching language to children are simple, for example colors, numbers, songs and talking about themselves.

Those assumptions are considered false because teaching children needs specialty. Teachers of young learners need skill in managing children, beside to have knowledge of language, of teaching, and of language learning. Children are not only interested in simple topics but also complicated, difficult, and abstract topics (Cameron, 2001). Therefore, teachers of young learners have to have capability of how to manage children and what to teach them.

These kinds of misassumption interest me in such a way that I would like to know more on what the teachers of English in elementary school believe about

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children’s characteristics, children’s way of learning and implication of their beliefs in the teaching and learning process in the classroom.

Many studies report teachers’ beliefs in language learning principles and how the beliefs affect the teachers’ teaching practices in the classroom. Two studies—among others--are discussed as follow. Hind, et al (2000) observed that there were five kinds of practices of English language teaching as a second language in the classes of a primary school in Australia. First, the teachers provided practical and multimodal activities. Second, they gave explicit modeling and discussion of managing the students’ own learning. Third, in order to ease of the students’ feelings of comfort and to foster their self-confidence, the teachers referred to the students’ experience of other cultures and languages. In addition to the skills to be mastered by the students, the teachers provided the four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing. The last is being aware of their role as a teacher; they focused on the students’ production of language--emphasizing on modeling ‘correct’ ‘standard’ English.

What the teachers did in the classroom was very much influenced by the age principles and the approach they believed. The principles and approach are of how to teach children in primary schools. Age was a factor affecting methods by which language was best learned. Children were perceived to have more time to achieve mastery of a second language and thus freer to ‘explore’ and ‘discover’ in the language learning.

Another study carried out by Liao (2007) revealed that elementary school English teachers in Taiwan, both in-service and pre-service ones, shared a similar and consistent set of beliefs. Most of them had common beliefs about: (1) the nature of children’s English language development, which was in accordance with the research

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literature on foreign language learning; (2) English teaching methods and techniques employed in the classroom, which were basically in tune with the teaching principles of CLT; and (3) a strong sense of self-efficacy as English teachers in terms of doing their work, which might have a positive impact on their performance based on the research findings of educational psychology.

Particularly in Indonesian setting, Huda (1999) points out that the teaching English in elementary school should be conducted using special methods that suit the nature of young learners. It needs special environments and techniques of teaching so that children can learn effectively. Furthermore, it is obvious that to create the special environments and to use the techniques, teachers need to identify the characteristics of their students and how they learn.

Several facts are exposed to the teaching and learning English language in Indonesia. Suyanto’s observation exposed that children in elementary school learning English were burdened with grammars and translation (http://www.bpkpenabur.or.ide/kps-jkt/berita/200106/bahas.pdf). This phenomenon is generally caused by the lack of knowledge on how children learn, that refers to the approach the teachers believe in, and of understanding on the factors influencing foreign language learning for young children. Consequently, children may lose their interest to learn English. He further asserted that teachers had an important role in the success of teaching and learning English language in the elementary school.

Another finding is stated by Dormer (2007) in his article. He found that many teachers focused on accommodating their students to pass the test. Neglecting the learning principles, the process of teaching and learning English in the classroom put

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much effort on the success of the students in achieving high scores. They neglected their focus to teach their students on the pursuit to proficiency in English.

Considering the facts above, it is worth investigating the teaching and learning English in elementary schools, particularly in the public elementary schools in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. The study reports what the teachers believe about children and how they learn, and how it affects the ways their teaching the language in the classroom. The implication studied is limited to the teaching practice during the lesson hour. Accordingly the result of the study supports the improvement of English language teaching and learning in elementary schools.

1.2 Research Questions

Based on the background mentioned above, this study is to address the following questions:

(1) What do the teachers believe about children’s characteristics?

(2) What do the teachers believe about how children learn a foreign language?

(3) Is what they believe reflected in the process of teaching English in their classrooms?

1.3 Research Goals

There are several aims to achieve in this study. First, it is to find out the teachers’ beliefs on children’s characteristics and their way of learning. Then, it is to see whether what they believe are reflected in the way they administer the lesson in their classrooms.

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1.4 Significance of The Study

This study suggests the teachers’ beliefs about children, including their learning principles and the effects on their techniques in teaching English language in the classroom. The findings of the study are expected to be beneficial to the improvement of English teaching and learning activities in elementary schools. Since teaching children is not the same as teaching adults in regards of having different natures, teachers of English in elementary schools are more encouraged to learn more about the nature of children and approaches that are suitable for teaching children in elementary schools.

1.5 Definitions of the Terms

To the extent of the study, some terms are clarified as follow:

Teacher’s beliefs refer to teachers' beliefs on pedagogic setting. It relates to the principles the teachers have in the way children learn and their reflection on the teaching practices in the classroom

Young learners refer to elementary school students. They range from grade 1 to 6. English for Young Learners is English language taught to children, especially in elementary school.

Teaching techniques refer to specific classroom activities, conducted by teachers and students (Brown, 2001).

1.6 Organization of the Study

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Chapter 1 deals with the background and focus of the study and relevant researches concerning teachers’ beliefs and the teachers’ teaching practices in their classroom. Chapter 2 presents the discussion on the teachers’ beliefs, children characteristics and theories of learning. It also includes implications of the children characteristics and learning theories in language learning.

Chapter 3 discusses the research methodology and explains how the data are collected and analyzed based on the literature reviews presented in Chapter 2.

In Chapter 4, the findings are presented to show what the teacher participants’ beliefs on children and how children learn a language. Then, these findings are discussed to see the implications of the beliefs and the teaching practices the teachers conducted in their classrooms.

In Chapter 5, some limitations of the study are discussed, the conclusions of this study are provided, and suggestions for further research are proposed.

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CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY

This chapter focuses on how the study was conducted. It discuses what design was employed in the study, where the study was carried out, who participated in the study, how the data were collected and then analyzed, and how to measure the validity of the study.

3.1 Research Design

This study employed a qualitative approach since it focused on the investigation of the teachers’ beliefs about how children learned, particularly learning English language, and their implication on the teaching process in their classrooms. This study deals with a social phenomenon—English language teaching classroom situation, that it is appropriate to be applied in this study. Cresswell (1994:1) states that qualitative study “…is an inquiry process of understanding a social or human problem based on building a complex, holistic picture, formed with words, reporting detailed views of informants, and conducted in a natural setting.” In line with this, Berg (2007) claims that it is a method to allow researchers to share in the understandings and perceptions of others. It appropriately is employed to discuss various social contours and processes that human beings use to create and maintain their social realities.

Specifically, a case study was used as the method of the study because it was intended to explore a phenomenon limited by time and activity. Merriam (1988) and Yin (1989) in Cresswell (1994) define a case study as exploration of a single entity or phenomenon (the “case”) bounded by time and activity, such as a program, event,

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process, institution, or social group. A case study may focus on either examination to a single aspect of an individual’s life or assessment to the social life of an individual and his or her behavior in society, experiences, roles, and motivations that affect his or her behavior in society (Berg, 2007). This was related to what was being investigated in the study.

3.2 Setting of the Study

The study was undertaken in two public elementary schools in Bandung Kulon Subdistrict, West Java, Indonesia. These schools were selected for several reasons, beside the places where the participants of the study taught English, such as their accessibility and characteristics. The schools were cooperative in supporting the study. The headmasters, particularly, welcomed the study because they were aware of their schools’ improvement in English language teaching. Thus, they made ease the investigation without troubling about the permission paper.

These schools had different features. The first school (School A) reached grade A in accreditation process based on the list from Education Office in Bandung. It means that the school is labeled as a good school. It had supportive facilities for English language class. The students studied in special rooms called language laboratory. Two rooms were set like a language laboratory—the seats were arranged in such a way that the students sat on plastic chairs facing a long desk that was divided into three chambers. A glass was installed on the front part of the desk, in order to enable the students to see the teacher through the glass. The rooms were equipped with a television set, a VCD player, a tape recorder, cassettes, cds, and books. With regard to the setting

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of the rooms, the students in one grade could not be accommodated all in one session. They were divided into three groups consisting of at least 15 students each.

On the other hand, the second school (School B) was accredited in grade B. It had no specific characteristics that made it different from other public schools found in Bandung. The students studied in a room in a classical way, sitting on a chair with a desk in front of them. Each desk was shared by two students, and there were about twenty desks in the classrooms. They sat in rows, facing the teacher’s desk and blackboard. Such a setting is commonly found in many public schools in Bandung.

3.3 Participants of the Study

The study involved three participants from the two schools. The participants voluntarily took part in the study. Two teachers taught English at School A, and a teacher at School B. At first, there would be two teachers participating from School B; however, the second teacher got sick soon after his willingness to participate in the study.

There were no specific criteria in the selection of these teachers, but some reasons were accounted. First, they had long experiences in teaching English, described in detail below. Second, they were all voluntarily willing to take part in the study because of their awareness to the improvement of English language teaching to children in their schools. They admitted that they needed inputs to improve their teaching techniques. The following are the personal information on each participant.

1. Participant 1 (P1)

P1 was male, about 37 years old. He had an undergraduate degree on English language and pedagogy and had been teaching English to young learners for 6 years. The last

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four years was the time he had spent teaching English in School A. He specialized teaching English to the students of grade 4 in the school.

2. Participant 2 (P2)

P2 was female, about 56 years old. She had an undergraduate degree on English language and pedagogy. She used to be an administrative employee in a government office before she was asked to teach in School A by the principal of the school. She had been teaching English to children for 3 years in School A. She taught English in grade 5 and 6.

3. Participant 3

P3 was female, about 41 years old. She had an undergraduate degree on French language from a school of languages in Bandung and a strata degree, a certificate on pedagogy, from a private university in Bandung. She had been teaching English for 20 years. However, she had spent the last three years focusing on teaching English to students School B.

3.4 Stages of the Study

The study started with conducting a pilot study. Its aims were to test ideas or methods and to explore their implications. Watt, Singer, and Willett (1990) in Maxwell (1996: 45) argue that no design is ever so complete that it cannot be improved by a prior, small- scale exploratory study. Pilot studies are almost always worth the time and effort. Carry out a pilot study if any facet of your design needs clarification.

The pilot study involved a teacher teaching English at a public elementary school in Bandung. First, she was given a set of questionnaire. After that, she was observed and interviewed. She was, then, asked whether she understood the statements

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in the questionnaire and questions in the interview. The result of the pilot study was then analyzed. The questionnaire and interview guide were revised. The same procedure was carried out to another teacher in order to perfect the instrument, that is to specifically get the core of the purpose of the study. The last revised questionnaire and interview guide were then used as the main instruments in the study.

The questionnaire was distributed to the participants in a private meeting. After having their willingness to participate in the study, I visited the two schools to meet their headmasters. This was intended to win their permission to do some observations in their schools. Without any hindrance, they allowed the study to take place there.

Based on the teachers’ agreement, each of them was observed four times. The first observation was carried out to familiarize myself with the field, such as with the participants, students, and classroom environment. This was also intended to establish a good relationship among I, as the researcher, and the other parties, both directly and indirectly involved in the study. This process is what is called rapport. This process was an effort to put away potential psychological barrier among the parties (Alwasilah, 2002).

The observations started in the third week of July to the second week of August in 2008. During the classroom observations, I sat at the corner of the classrooms observing the teachers and students’ activities, while taking notes on the steps the teachers took and the activities the students had in the classrooms.

The interviews were carried out formally and informally. The formal interviews took place at special time since the participants had crowded schedule of teaching and other business outside the schools. On the other hand, the participants were interviewed

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informally before they taught the students and after the teaching process for about 5-10 minutes.

3.5 Data Collection

As mentioned earlier, this study is a qualitative research. The data were collected through triangulation strategy, that is collecting information from various individuals and using a variety of methods (Denzin in Maxwell, 1996). The methods were questionnaire, classroom observation, and interview with the teachers.

Questionnaire was distributed to the participants to collect the data. The questionnaire comprised a set of questions answered by the participants being investigated. It was intended, first of all, to gain information about their personal identity and professional development as a teacher of English in general and EYL teacher in particular, for example teaching experiences, trainings, seminars, or workshop related to EYL they attended, etc. Then, it was to search for their responses on their beliefs on how children learn, particularly learning English language, and their teaching techniques in the classrooms to help the children learn.

The questionnaire consisted of three parts of statements. The first and the second parts were about children’s characteristics and children’s ways of learning. Each statement was followed with a range of scale of three options: agree, uncertain, and disagree. The last part was about how they conducted their lesson in their classrooms. The statements were followed with a range of scale of five options: always, often, sometimes, seldom, and never (for a complete questionnaire see Appendix A).

The observations were conducted in English language classrooms to cross check the extent to which the teachers’ options stated in the questionnaire were actually

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present in their classroom practices. Observations were useful in such a way that they showed things that had become routines to the participants themselves, things which may lead to understanding the context (Merriam, 1988). I was a complete observer as I was not taking part in the conversation in the classroom.

The classroom observations focused on what the teachers said and did in the classroom. A checklist was used for the classroom observations which highlighted the following aspects:

a. The content and attitude goals: 1) What content is taught?

2) Do the teachers create a pleasing atmosphere in the classrooms? 3) How do the teachers use English language in the classrooms? - Do they use English all the time?

- Do they translate their English into Bahasa Indonesia?

- Do they restate the students’ use of Bahasa Indonesia into English? 4) Do the teachers support the students to use English in the classrooms? 5) How do the teachers correct the students’ mistakes on English language? b. The techniques the teachers apply:

- Do they apply various activities in one meeting? - How is each technique implemented?

- Do they involve the students in physical activities?

In order to make ease the process of observation, I made use of a video recorder. The classroom activities were shot by the help of a friend, since I was doing the note taking. It was functional to record all activities in the classroom during the lesson. As Merriam (1988) suggests that recording make the data analysis easier.

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The other technique of data collection was interview. Interview is the person-to-person encounter in which one person-to-person gains information from another (Merriam, 1998). The interviews were carried out to get in-depth information (Alwasilah, 2002) of the participants’ opinions on what they had said and done in the classroom. All of the interviews were recorded using a voice recorder.

The interviews were in the participants’ mother tongue (Bahasa Indonesia), as requested by the participants. The participants were interviewed several times, formally and informally, as mentioned in the earlier section. The formal interviews were semi-structured and took place in a special occasion to obtain information about their beliefs on children (their characteristics and their ways of learning) and their teaching practices. Here are the core questions:

1) What are the characteristics of children? 2) How do children learn a foreign language? 3) How do you use English in the classroom? 4) What techniques are employed in the classroom?

5) What steps are carried out in teaching English in the classroom? - Are there any routines applied in the classroom?

6) What do you think of Multiple Intelligences?

- Do you consider your students’ multiple intelligences in your teaching? 7) How do you correct the students’ mistakes?

The informal interviews were carried out before and after the observations. The questions led to what the teachers were going to do in their classrooms, and what they

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had done in the classrooms. This was to cross check their beliefs and their actual practices in the classrooms. The questions asked to the participants before the class started are:

1. What subject is going to be taught today? 2. What media will be used?

3. How will the subject is going to be delivered? 4. What activities are the students going to do? And, the questions after the class are:

1. How was the teaching process just now?

2. Were you successful to carry out your lesson plan?

3. Did you meet any difficulties in teaching today? If any, what were they? 4. How were your students respond to the lesson today?

3.6 Data Analysis

Analysis of data in qualitative research is an ongoing process (Maxwell, 1992). Once the data were collected, they were analyzed to meet the research questions. The data analysis and interpretation were mainly based on the observations, questionnaires and interviews.

In analyzing the data, basically several cyclical phases were followed as suggested by Jackson (1989). The data were analyzed thoroughly to identify tentative theme and develop concepts on mini theories. Next, the data obtained were categorized and ordered. The last phase was assessing the trustworthiness of the data, so that there was a refinement of understanding of the matter on the study.

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The videotape record and audio-taped interviews were transcribed. Then, the transcriptions were categorized and interpreted to answer the research questions dealing with the teacher and students’ interaction in the English language class. Alwasilah (2002) asserted that a qualitative researcher should be consistent and constant in dealing with the study. I analyzed the data collected as soon as possible in order to avoid overloaded work to do.

3.7 Validity Issues

Validity is another important element in a qualitative study to prove its trustworthiness and authenticity as proposed by Lincoln and Guba (1985) and Erlando, Harris, Skipper, and Allen (1993) cited in Cresswell (1994). The data must be believed and trusted, that it needs to present insights and conclusions which are true to readers, educators, and other researchers (Merriam, 1988: 164).

The data of the study should contain internal validity. Internal validity deals with the question of how one’s findings match reality and whether s/he is observing or measuring what s/he thinks s/he is observing (Merriam, 1988). It implies that in a qualitative study, there are potential threats that can lead the researcher to the wrong path. Consequently, some strategies are needed to do.

3.7.1 Validity threats

The following are some examples of validity threats and the anticipation to avoid the threats:

1. How are the data collected? Merriam (1988) calls it description, the main threat to validity regarding what is seen and heard—inaccuracy or incompleteness of the

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data. It was anticipated by making use of technology of audio and video recording of interviews and observations.

2. Are they saying the truth? Are they making beliefs their teaching practices? The participants were surely assumed to say the truth when they were interviewed and to act naturally when they were observed. However, who could guarantee that they were doing so. Anticipating this potential circumstance, the participants were convinced that, first, they would appear anonymous in the report. Second, the interviews would be kept confidential. Last, whatever they said and did were nothing wrong. The study was not intended to seek for their mistakes and weaknesses Rather, the data would be used to portrait the beliefs that were upheld by the teachers of elementary school towards their students and their teaching process.

3.7.2 Validity tests

In order to ensure the internal validity, several strategies were followed based on what listed by Maxwell (1996).

1. Triangulation

To keep the study valid, triangulation method was carried out in collecting the data (Denzin in Maxwell, 1996). This method enabled me to compare the questionnaire, observations, and interviews to be constant to one another. This method was an attempt to deal with validity threat of self-report bias in the interviews and recordings.

For the purpose of the study, other sources of data were also used, such as the teachers’ books, their lesson plans (if any), media, games, etc. Several different

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methods were also carried out, for example field notes, different ways of questioning regarding the same point of questions.

This study used questionnaire and observation as the main instruments. However, the data gathered from the two instruments were not enough. Therefore, interviews were also taken to validate the main instruments. The data collected from the questionnaire were only written data that could not prove anything. Though, the teachers’ beliefs could be revealed through the questionnaire, they needed to be validated through observations. The first group of statements dealt with the teachers’ beliefs on children characteristics and their ways of learning English. To see whether their choices were really what they believed, some observations were conducted. The observations gave more pictures of what they believed. The way they delivered the lesson and they provided the activities for their students were viewed to match up their options in the questionnaire. Nevertheless, this was not sufficient, that it needed another method to do. The participants were, then, interviewed to see their clarifications on what were chosen in the interviews and their actions in the classroom during the observations. 2. Feedback

It is possible that I, myself as a researcher, contributed to the validity threats through my assumptions and flaws in my logic or methods. Therefore, feedback from friends and colleagues were invited. I came to friends and colleagues who are familiar with the phenomena or setting I was studying and strangers to the issue. They gave me different ideas and comments that are valuable contribution to the study.

3. Member checks

Gaining feedback from the people who were under investigation was another method to avoid the threat. After analyzing the data, I called the participants again to

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confirm the data I got. I wanted to keep the study away from misinterpretation of the meaning of what they said and perspective they had on the issue under investigation.

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CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES

This study sought to investigate the real phenomena of teaching English in two different public elementary schools in Bandung Kulon Sub-district. The approach was developed to reveal at least two senses. The first was to identify the teachers’ beliefs of children, as they taught in elementary school. The second was to correlate their beliefs with their teaching practices in their classes.

5.1 Conclusions

The major conclusion of the study is that the teachers had positive beliefs about who children were. Most significantly, the teachers believed that the nature of children was to play and have fun. In their knowledge, children loved playing and having fun wherever and whenever they were. Despite attending the class to study, the children would use any opportunity to play games with their friends. It means that children were viewed as active individuals because they involved physical activities while playing. They also would make use of any object in their surrounding to visualize their imagination.

Another nature of children that the teachers believed was the children’s sense of curiosity over things. The teachers called the children as having the sense of “activeness”. The children would ask anything they found interesting. Especially when learning English, they had curiosity over the English words they wanted to know. They also often encountered some students who experimented with their English. The

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Children were believed to have high understanding towards people’s utterances, despite their limited resources. In addition, they could also make use of their limited resources to produce the language. As mentioned earlier, the teachers often met their students who tried to use English to greet their teachers.

In terms of analogy, the teachers believed that children were like a blank paper or canvas that could be sketched anything. What was sketched o the paper or canvas would reflect the children’s characteristics. Therefore, the interpretation would be that children were passive because they depended on what and who they encountered.

To the extent of learning English, the participants believed in what the theories said about how children learned a language, especially English. In behaviorism theory, children learned by responding the teacher’ instructions, and rewards played an important role. In the sense of constructivism, the children needed adults to help them learn the language. Interaction with adults and peers improved their competence in the language. The children needed to be provided with opportunities to work on their own to show their independence and competence. In the theory of multiple intelligences, the children had different intelligences, some were good at music, some at math, some at language, etc. Thus, they should be treated differently in accordance with their intelligence to support the success of the learning.

Even though the teachers had such beliefs, they performed many teaching activities that were not quite relevant with many of their beliefs. Their teaching activities were still of classical way, with limited variations. They taught grammar explicitly in order to make their students aware that English language had a set of rules that were different from their native language. To make it worse, the students started learning the rules from memorizing the patterns. They were demanded to keep the

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patterns in their mind so that they could not make mistakes in using the language, especially in doing the exercises in the textbooks. Beside that, they were also introduced to vocabularies and their translation in Bahasa Indonesia that they had to memorize. The students were not exposed to why they were required to do that, not to mention how to use those vocabularies. Without any context, they were told to recite the vocabularies.

Surprisingly, English language was used in their classroom, but it was not used as a means of communication—conveying ideas and thoughts. Rather, it was used to give instructions, sometimes irrelevant use of instructions. For example, the students were asked to stand up and sit down repeatedly without any purpose of doing so. Again, no context was established during the English language teaching and learning. Consequently, they could not develop more creative and various activities because their concern was on teaching the students not on how to make the students were able to use English purposefully.

As described In Chapter 2, there are two propositions regarding the teachers’ beliefs and the teaching practices. Some experts claimed that there is a high consistency between the teachers’ beliefs and their teaching practices, while the others suggested the contrary. Based on the investigation in this study, it seems that the second claim applies to this study. The teachers’ beliefs seem to be less consistent with what they performed in their English classes.

Through this study, however, it is hoped that the school authorities are more aware of the situations of the English language teaching in their schools. Noticing the situations, they can identify the good things and problems that take place during the

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learning process. Thus, they can maintain the good things and help find ways out to cope with the problems.

Finally, it is also hoped that the relevant instances provide more trainings, seminars and workshops to the teachers of English in elementary schools. The trainings, seminars and workshops will benefit the teachers in more opening their horizons in teaching English to young learners. Such events will also provide the opportunities to meet with other teachers to share information and experiences with each other.

5.2 Recommendations for Further Studies

There are some limitations of the study, and the major one is the time allotment for this study. The study had limited time to explore more about the teachers’ perceptions and knowledge because they had tight schedule of teaching. They were also busy with their household matters, as all of them were family kind of people. Therefore, it is recommended to do further study with sufficient time with other teachers in wider scope. It is also suggested that the time be enough to explore more teachers’ perceptions and knowledge.

Moreover, though this study may not be generalisable to other settings, the most concern falls on the teaching practices that are suitable for children. Therefore, it is also recommended to those who have interests in EYL in public elementary school to design the English language teaching and learning, such as teaching techniques, that suits the conditions of the school, the students, and the teachers.

The last recommendation is conducting a study focusing on the teaching of grammar in elementary school. Language cannot be separated from what so called

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grammar. It has always been debatable, when teaching English, the teachers should or not focus on the grammar instructions. A model using the approach of grammar will be beneficial for the teachers of English in elementary school, so that they can provide a model of English language teaching that is children friendly.

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93 learning process. Thus, they can maintain the good things and help find ways out to cope with the problems.

5.2 Recommendations for Further Studies

The last recommendation is conducting a study focusing on the teaching of grammar in elementary school. Language cannot be separated from what so called

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95 REFERENCES

Alwasilah, A. C. (2002). Pokoknya Qualitative: Dasar-dasar Merancang dan Melakukan Penelitian Qualitative. Jakarta: PT. Dunia Pustaka Jaya.

Arnold, J. 1999. Affect in Language Learning.UK: Cambridge University Press.

Arnold, J., & Brown, H. D. (1999). A map of the terrain. In Jane Arnold (Ed.), Affects in Language Learning. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Auvigne, S. (1997). Learning Theory. [Online]. Available: http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~mcisaac/emc503/assignments/assign4/auvigne.ht ml.

Berg, B. L. (2007). Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. USA: Pearson Education.

Brewster, J., Ellis, G., & Girard, D. (2003). The Primary English Teacher’s Guide. China: Pearson Education Limited.

Brown, H. D. (1991). Breaking the Language Barrier. USA: Intercultural Press, Inc. Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by Principles: An interactive approach to language

pedagogy. USA: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching Languages to Young Learners. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Chafe, A. (1998). Cooperative Learning and the Second Language Classroom. Available at http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/~achafe/cooplang.html.

Christison, M. A., & Kennedy, D. (2001). Multiple Intelligences: Theory and Practice in Adult ESL. [Online]. Available: http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-1/multiple.html

Cole, M., & Cole, S. R. (2001). The Development of Children. New York: Worth Publishers.

Cox, C. (1999). Teaching Language Arts: A student- and response-centered classroom. Third Edition. USA: Allyn and Bacon.

Crain, W. Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications. Fourth Edition. USA: Prentice Hall.

Darling-Hammond, L., Orcutt, S., & Cheung, M. Learning As We Grow:Development and Learning. Available at:

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Donaldson, M. (1978). Children’s Mind. Great Britain: Fontana Press.

Dormer, J. E. (2007). When Teachers don’t speak English. The Jakarta Post. April 28, 2007.

Ellis, G., & Brewster, J. (1991). The Storytelling Handbook: A guide for primary teachers of English.England: Penguin Groups.

Fisher, B. (1991). Joyful Learning: A Whole Language Kindergarten. USA: Heinemann.

Freeman, E. D., & Freeman, Y. S. (1994). Between Worlds: Access to Second Language Acquisition. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

Learners. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

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Huda, N. (1999). Language Learning and Teaching: Issues and Trends. Malang: IKIP Malang Publisher.

Johnson, K. (2001). An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching. England: Pearson Education Limited.

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97 Freeman, D. L. (1986). Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching. England:

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