MICROTEACHING STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON THE USE OF REINFORCEMENT SKILL IN MICROTEACHING CLASS A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education

  MICROTEACHING STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON THE USE OF REINFORCEMENT SKILL IN MICROTEACHING CLASS A SARJANA PENDIDIKAN THESIS Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education

  By Bella Stasia

  Student Number: 081214154

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION DEPARTMENT TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2013

  A Sarjana Pendidikan Thesis on

  MICROTEACHING STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON THE USE OF REINFORCEMENT SKILL IN MICROTEACHING CLASS

  By Bella Stasia

  Student Number: 081214154 Approved by

  Advisor Date

  

STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY

  I honestly declare that this thesis, which I have written, does not contain the work or parts of the work of other people, except those cited in the quotations and the references, as a scientific paper should.

  Yogyakarta, October 18, 2013 The Writer

  Bella Stasia 081214154

  

LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN

PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS

  Yang bertanda tangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswa Universitas Sanata Dharma: Nama : Bella Stasia Nomor Mahasiswa : 081214154 Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:

  

MICROTEACHING STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION ON THE USE

OF REINFORCEMENT SKILL IN MICROTEACHING CLASS

  beserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada Perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan royalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis.

  Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya. Dibuat di Yogyakarta Pada tanggal 18 Oktober 2013 Yang menyatakan, Bella Stasia

  

ABSTRACT

  Stasia, Bella. 2013. Microteaching Students’ Perception on the Use of

  

Reinforcement Skill in Microteaching Class. Yogyakarta: Sanata Dharma

University.

  There is a similar aspect learnt in education and psychology field, i.e. behavior. The research deals with behavior of students in a classroom. The teacher needs teaching skills to maintain classroom condition. One of them is reinforcement skill.

  There are two problems proposed in this research. The first is what Microteaching students’ perception on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class is. The second is what the suggestions of Microteaching students on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class are.

  To solve the problems, the researcher conducted a survey research. Survey research is to gain information from a group of people to describe characteristics such as ability, opinions or knowledge through asking question and draw a sample rather than involving all the members of population (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009). The samples were Microteaching students who have implemented reinforcement skill in Microteachingclass. The instruments used in this research were questionnaire and focused group discussion (FGD). The participants were Microteaching students who were taking Microteaching course in even semester of 2012.

  From the research results in the first problem, it was concluded that Microteaching students had positive perception on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class. The teacher candidates have implemented reinforcement skill in their teaching practice using verbal and non-verbal form. Still, there were teachers who tend to use verbal rather than non-verbal. To solve the second problem, the researcher perceived two suggestions. The first is for the teacher candidates in Microteaching class and the second is for the implementation reinforcement skill in Microteaching class.

  Keywords: perception, Microteaching, reinforcement skill

  

ABSTRAK

  Stasia, Bella. 2013. Microteaching Students’ Perception on the Use of

  

Reinforcement Skill in Microteaching Class. Yogyakarta: Sanata Dharma

University.

  Ada kesamaan aspek yang dipelajari dalam bidang pendidikan maupun

psikologi, yaitu tingkah laku. Penelitian ini mengenai tingkah laku siswa dalam

kelas. Guru memerlukan ketrampilan untuk menjaga kondisi kelas. Salah satunya

adalah ketrampilan penguatan.

  Ada dua permasalahan yang diangkat dalam penelitian ini. Masalah yang

pertama apa persepsi siswa kelas Microteaching terhadap penggunaan

ketrampilan penguatan di kelas Microteaching. Masalah yang kedua apa saran-

saran siswa Microteaching terhadap penggunaan ketrampilan penguatan di kelas

  Microteaching?

  Untuk mencari solusi permasalahan tersebut, peneliti menggunakan

metode survei. Survei digunakan untuk menggali informasi dari sekelompok

orang untuk menggambarkan karakteristik seperti kemampuan, pendapat atau

ilmu pengetahuan dan lebih menggunakan sampel daripada mengikutsertakan

seluruh populasi (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009). Penelitian ini menggunakan sampel

siswa Microteaching yang sudah mengimplementasikan ketrampilan penguatan

dalam kelas Microteaching. Instrumen yang digunakan adalah kuisioner dan

fokus grup diskusi (FGD). Partisipannya adalah siswa Microteaching yang

mengambil mata kuliah Microteaching di semester genap tahun 2012.

  Dari hasil penelitian pada permasalahan pertama, dapat disimpulkan

bahwa siswa Microteaching mempunyai persepsi positif terhadap penggunaan

ketrampilan penguatan dalam kelas Microteaching. Para calon guru tersebut

telah mengimplementasikan ketrampilan penguatan dalam bentuk verbal dan non-

verbal ketika berlatih mengajar. Tetapi, ada beberapa calon guru yang cenderung

menggunakan bentuk verbal daripada non-verbal. Untuk mencari solusi

permasalahan kedua, ada dua saran. Saran yang pertama untuk para calon guru

(siswa Microteaching) dan yang kedua untuk implementasi ketrampilan

penguatan dalam kelas Microteaching.

  Kata kunci: perception, Microteaching, reinforcement skill

  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  First of all, I would like to deliver my greatest gratitude to God Almighty, Jesus Christ and Saint Mary because of the blessing during the process of finishing this Sarjana Pendidikan thesis.

  I would like to thank my advisor Agustinus Hardi Prasetyo, S. Pd., M.A. for his guidance and patience from passing my proposal until completing the thesis. Also, I would like to express my gratitude to all the lecturers of Microteaching course for their permission and suggestions.

  I dedicate my thesis to Bapak Margono, Ibu Indrati, Mbak Awa and Mas Niko. I thank them all for the love, guidance, support and warning. I also thank my best friend, Dyta, for the kindness, generosity and care. My gratitude goes to Bundo Rei, Clara, Delis, Desya, Pyta, Siwi and Okta for the cheer and spirit during this undergraduate program.

  My special gratefulness goes to Berlin, Saka, Kojek, Mike and Mia, for checking my thesis and offering best friendship during the undergraduate program. So much laughter, tears and love exist while we are together. Also, my appreciation goes to Power Rangers group, consisting of Frater (my thesis proofreader), Adam, Yosua, Yustian and Benny, and friends of PBI and PSI 2007, consisting of Wichan, Nidya, Ochak, Ines, Dini, Reko and Fanoy, that show me a house with full of laughter and friendliness in their community, events and hang outs.

  All my happiness and proudness goes to Mr. Prast’s thesis students especially year 2008, I thank you all so I can end my destiny as the last man standing in this umbrella group. My thankfulness is directed to Patemon Kotabaru Family for the experiences, knowledge, laughter, tears and hospitality. I would like to express my gratitude to ICEE corner community, consisting of Tiara, Hani, Dhimas, Ismoyo, Tata and Fani, that presents a family with full of fun and lessons. The last but not the least, my deepest gratitude goes to all my participants during the research, Microteaching students in even semester of 2012 (PBI 2009), for their willingness to fill the questionnaires and attend the focused group discussion.

  Bella Stasia

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  5 E. Research Benefits………………………………………..

  17 B. Theoretical Framework………………………………….

  11 3. Reinforcement Skill …………………….......…..

  9 2. Microteaching ………………..............................

  9 1. Perception.............................................................

  9 A. Theoretical Description………………………………….

  6 CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE…………………….

  5 F. Definition of Terms……………………………………...

  4 D. Research Objectives……………………………………..

  Page TITLE PAGE…………………………………………………………………. i APPROVAL PAGES………………………………………………………… ii STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY……………………………….. iv

  4 C. Problem Limitation……………………………………...

  1 B. Research Problems………………………………………

  1 A. Research Background…………………………………...

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………... viii TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………... x LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………. xii LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………... xiii LIST OF APPENDICES……………………………………………………… xiv CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………...

  

ABSTRAK……………………………………………………………………... vii

  ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………... vi

  

PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI………………………….......... v

  26

  CHAPTER III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY…………………………….

  29

  29 A. Research Method………………………………………...

  30 B. Research Setting…………………………………………

  31 C. Research Participants……………………………………

  31 D. Instruments and Data Gathering Technique……………..

  36 E. Data Analysis Technique………………………………..

  38 F. Research Procedure……………………………………...

  CHAPTER IV. RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION……………….

  41 A. Microteaching Students’ Perception on the Use of Reinforcement Skill in Microteaching class…….............

  41

  41 1. The Result of Students’ Perception as the Student....

  50 2. The Result of Students’ Perception as the Teacher... Students’ Suggestions for the

  B. Microteaching Implementation of Reinforcement Skill in Microteaching Class ……………….................................

  59 CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS……………

  63

  63 A. Conclusions……………………………………………...

  66 B. Recommendations……………………………………….

  REFERENCES………………………………………………………………...

  68 APPENDICES ……………………………………………………………….

  70

  

LIST OF TABLES

  Table Page

  3.1 The Schedule of Distributing Questionnaire…………………..…........ 35

  4.1 The Result of Students’ Perception as the Student (Close-ended) …... 42

  4.2 The Result of Students’ Perception as the Teacher (Close-ended)…… 50

  LIST OF FIGURES

  Figure Page

  2.1 The Perceptual Process …………………………………………………..…. 26

  2.2 Original Microteaching Cycle…………………………………...…… 27

LIST OF APPENDICES

  Page Appendix A: Letter of Permission to Conduct Research………………….. 71 Appendix B: The Blueprint of the Questionnaire…………………………. 72 Appendix C: Raw Data from Open-ended Questionnaire Questions……... 75 Appendix D: The Focused Group Discussion Result……………………... 85 Appendix E: Questionnaire………………………………………………... 90

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The title of this research is Microteaching students’ perception on the use

  of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class. This chapter describes an introduction that is made up of research background, research problems, problem limitation, research objectives, research benefits and definition of the terms.

A. Research Background

  Education field has a close relation to psychology. There are similar aspects that are studied in both fields. One of the aspects is the behavior of an individual. Since this research focus on is teaching education field, the object of the behavior is a student in a classroom. In a classroom, there is an interaction between a teacher and the students. The teacher plays important role in the learning process supported by the students as well. A professional teaching activity requires a set of standard quality to be achieved. The importance of personality, theoretical and practical understandings of a subject and skills are the requirements of being an effective teacher (Cooper, 2011). The unwanted behavior of a student may occur during the learning process in a classroom (Fontana, 1985). For a teacher candidate, it might not be easy to deal with the process of the situation stated by Fontana. Many teaching techniques and skills need to be learnt. A student of teachers training is trained to master the teaching

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  skills. It happens in English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University.

  Since the subject focus on is English, the students perceive certain understandings of the theory and practice in both oral and written. For the practice in language education especially teaching, the students are introduced and studied a subject named Microteaching. As cited from the academic guidebook of English Language Education Study Program, it is an obligatory course that provides the environment of teaching practice to encourage the students’ self-evaluative skills on the teaching competence and performance. The evaluative skills consist of teaching styles, content mastery and suggestions within. The setting of the classroom is for 20-23 learners (Tutyandari, Prasetyo, Kristiyani & Bram, 2011).

  Microteaching is a lesson requiring the teacher candidate (learner) to teach a small group of pupils in a short period of time. The teaching practice consists of a set of skills such as set induction and closure, effective questioning, pupil reinforcement and participation (Brown, 1975: 15). The activity is usually recorded in a video to enable the Microteaching students to evaluate their performances. It also involves an observation for the deeper evaluation.

  Based on Fontana theory related to the occurring of the unwanted behavior, the researcher would like to emphasize one of the teaching skills learnt in Microteaching class that is reinforcement skill. Turney, et al. (1973) state that psychologists find out the effect of reward and punishment in humans, especially the students in education. Reinforcement itself has two forms. It is regarded as

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  positive if a reward is given in return. It is negative when it is expressed by withholding, corrective feedback and punishment (Brown, 1975). The punishment is no longer used since it can decrease the students’ responses. The researcher has interest in positive reinforcement as the subject because it can increase the students’ participation in the classroom. Using positive reinforcement and its techniques in the classroom can increase the students’ participation by observing the class situation and students’ behavior (Brown, 1975). Turney, et al. (1973) say that the teacher can facilitate the learning process, increase the students’ attention, maintain the students’ motivation and improve the expected students’ behavior.

  In Microteaching class, the students are no longer trained as students but teacher candidates during the course. The reason is that they practice and demonstrate how to be an English teacher. Then, the rest will be assigned as the students. During the course, Microteaching students have three kinds of progress tests to be completed. Each progress test has different levels of education that should be demonstrated. The levels consist of junior high school, senior high school and university.

  To review the implementation of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class, the researcher investigates Microteaching students’ perception on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class. In one semester, Microteaching students have experienced the use of reinforcement skill both as the teacher and the student and they have the perception of it. According to Altman (1985), perception is how an individual interprets the stimuli from the surrounding

  !

  adds that it is a process of organizing and interpreting the stimuli so the individual can create a meaning to define the stimuli. The theory of perception is chosen to obtain the information from the students in academic year 2009 that were taking Microteaching course in even semester in 2012. This is considered as the first research problem.

  After solving the first research problem, the implementation of reinforcement skill needs to be evaluated the strengths and weaknesses in aim of improvement and development. The second problem will focus on the suggestions of the implementation. So, the researcher acquires the suggestions for any improvement from Microteaching students after they applied reinforcement skill.

  B. Research Problems

  By considering the research background, the researcher is going to find the answers to these two research questions:

  1. What is Microteaching students’ perception on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class?

  2. What are Microteaching students’ suggestions on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class?

  C. Problem Limitation

  This research focuses on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class done by the students. The teacher who practices in front of the class should

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  background. There are 7 classes in even semester of 2012. The researcher took all the classes as the participants of this research but only several students of each class were taken. The information needed to answer the problems emphasizes the students’ perception on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class and the suggestions from Microteaching students on the use of reinforcement skill.

D. Research Objectives The research has two research objectives related to the problem questions.

  1. To find out Microteaching students’ perception on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class.

  2. To perceive Microteaching students’ suggestions on the use of reinforcement skill in Microteaching class.

E. Research Benefits

  There are some benefits that can be perceived from this research. The benefits are provided for public concern. The descriptions are as follows.

1. Microteaching students as the teacher candidates

  This research can be regarded as a reflection of an academic subject since it discusses the basic teaching skills that have to be mastered. So, it is expected to help the teacher candidates in Microteaching class find a new reference in how to be a professional teacher. The formal teaching that is investigated during the

  !

  2. Lecturers

  The researcher has 7 classes as the sources of the information needed. The lecturers who are in charge of Microteaching class should pay attention on their students’ understanding concerning this teaching skill. They can follow up the development of each student’s performance using reinforcement skill. So, they can go deeper into an evaluation of their students’ performances and see what should be improved. This research also allows the other lecturers and teachers in general to develop their teaching experiences that lead to improvement.

  3. Other researchers

  There might be other researchers who are willing to conduct research related to this topic for further interest. Hopefully, this research can inspire other researchers to expand educative innovations. Also, it can enhance the global knowledge and references. Then, it can be used as an academic source in how to manage a classroom for a professional teacher.

F. Definition of Terms

  In this part, there are three terms that are defined. Those terms are used to list the theories as the base of this research. They are stated as follows.

1. Perception

  In this study, perception is a stimulus object or event that is experienced;

someone is aware of an object, activity or relationship involving senses then he/she

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recognizes, identifies and observes to perceive the conclusion and interpret the

stimulus (VandenBos, 2007). When the stimulus is received for the first time, it

needs to be identified then it is changed to an interpretation in somebody’s mind. If

an individual experiences the stimulus in the different times, still, he/she will

correspond to the earliest stimulus. This perception is intended to provoke the

experience of Microteaching students when they implement reinforcement skill in

the teaching practice to increase the students’ participation.

2. Microteaching

  In this study, Microteaching is an obligatory course to be taken since it supports the practical understanding in English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University. It is categorized in Matakuliah Keahlian

  

Berkarya (KPE 361) that is made up of 2 credits in a semester. Microteaching is a

  training done in pre-service and in-service stages in the process of becoming a professional teacher (Allen & Ryan, 1969). Also, they add that a micro teacher has a small group of students and will be observed while performing to get the feedback from the observer before facing the real teaching situation. It means the teacher candidate should pass this level since this is a simulation imitating a real classroom condition. Microteaching has five basic teaching skills to be mastered.

  Those are stimulus variation skill, set induction and closure skills, reinforcement for the student and questioning skill.

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3. Reinforcement Skill

  As mentioned in the microteaching term, a micro teacher needs to attain the basic teaching skills. They are stimulus variation, set induction, closure, silence and nonverbal cues, reinforcement of the students’ participation, fluency in asking a question (Allen & Ryan, 1969: 15). This research focuses on the reinforcement skill. Turney, et al. (1973) say that reinforcement is a positive response that is given to a behavior in order that it is likely to occur again as it is expected. The purpose of using reinforcement skill is to give reward in return for having the expected behavior and to diminish the students’ unexpected behavior (Brown, 1975). Reinforcement is divided into two types, positive reinforcement including reward and negative reinforcement including withholding, corrective feedback and punishment (Brown, 1975). Those can be in form of verbal and non- verbal ways.

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE This chapter provides the theories of the related literature to answer the

  research problems. It consists of theories that will be used as the base of the research and as the references in the further discussion especially in chapter IV.

  Theoretical description and theoretical framework are explained as follows.

A. Theoretical Description

  In this theoretical description, the researcher focuses on the theories related to the key terms that are stated in the introduction. There are perception, microteaching and reinforcement skill that will be discussed in detail and proved by experts’ theories.

1. Perception

  VandenBos (2007) states that perception is a stimulus object or event that is

  

experienced; someone is aware of an object, activities or relationships involving

senses then he/she recognizes, identifies and observes to perceive the conclusion and

interpret the stimulus into meaningful knowledge.

  According to Kalish (1973), perception means a process of organizing and interpreting sensory stimuli into meaningful structure. He also cites from Hilgard and Atkinson’s theory that perception is “becoming aware of objects, qualities, or relations by the way of the

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  Likewise, Robbins (2001) says perception is a process of an individual interprets and organizes the received sensory so it can give a meaning to his environment. In addition, it affects an individual’s behavior on the perception of what the reality is, not on the reality itself. There are other views stated by Forgus (1966) about the process of perception. The way of an individual obtaining knowledge from his/her surrounding is an important part. There is information from the expansive areas in his/her environment and the individual extracts the information (stimuli) through the individual’s senses. Shortly, perception is a process of receiving or extracting the information from the surrounding environment. Forgus (1966) adds that it becomes the core of acquisition process of cognition or knowledge that is modified by growth, development and experience (p. 2).

  Altman (1985) describes several factors that influence the perception of an individual. The factors are as follows.

• Selection of stimuli

  When recognizing the surrounding environment, an individual tends to notice the small number of stimuli that the individual perceives. This is a process of selection where the individual selects the specific parts of the stimuli to gain information. So, it can build different perception between one and another individual.

• Organization of stimuli

  This second factor is important because it affects an individual’s perceptual

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  a meaning. The brain function is to select the stimuli and put them together into meaningful way that is based on the experience.

• Situation A person’s familiarity with, the expectation of an individual, the experience and the situation in the past affects what the person perceives from the environment. Perceiving situation is related to how the person responds to the situation through a behavior. So, the situation is regarded as a factor that influences perception.
• Self-concept The way we feel about and perceive ourselves is known as the self-concept.

  The way we see our self-concept affects our perceptions. We might regard ourselves as a patient, honest or intelligent person. This is important because the mental picture of ourselves can determine what we perceive and do.

  Kalish (1973) adds some factors influencing perception. They are characteristics of the stimuli and the perceiver, such as needs, experiences, set and personal rigidity. In conclusion, all individuals perceive different stimuli so they create different interpretations of the stimuli. Also, a group of individuals who perceive the similar stimuli have a possibility to have different perceptions.

2. Microteaching The microteaching part contains a list of sections that can be categorized.

  The first is an exact description about the definition and its characteristics. The

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  second is the principles of microteaching as a subject including the practical use and purpose within.

a. Definition and its Characteristics

  This research focuses on Microteaching subject in English Language Education Study Program Sanata Dharma University that is offered in each semester. Since the course is compulsory, all of the students have experienced a teaching practice in order to complete this KPE 361 Matakuliah Keahlian

Berkarya. The students are trained as a teacher candidate in the classroom.

  Microteaching started to be developed since 1963 at Stanford University School of Education as an experimental teacher education program (Borg, Kelley, Langer & Gall, 1970). Borg, et al. (1970) define microteaching into some characteristics and these are the basic elements as follows.

  1) The teacher is presented the teaching skills to be practiced. 2) The teacher practices in a short lesson (reducing the time of the lesson) with a small group of pupils.

  3) There is a recorded-video as the result of teaching performance and then the supervisor analyzes the applied skill by the teacher.

  4) From the video, a further practice is recommended to conduct the practice again by the teacher with the other groups of pupils and another video will be required.

  Allen and Ryan (1969) state that there are several aspects are reduced

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  about 25 or 30 taught in the microteaching. As cited by Borg, et al. (1970) concerning the elements of microteaching, Allen and Clark (1967) state “some of variables which can be adjusted include lesson length, number of pupils, types of pupils, number of reteaches, the amount and kind of supervision and the use of videotape” (p. 75). According to Allen and Ryan (1969: 2), microteaching presents a situation that has the same characteristic as a real classroom but the complexity is less in degree and the teacher has the feedback after performing his/her practice. Allen and Ryan (1969) provide further evidences of five basic ideas of microteaching viewed from its elements.

  1) Microteaching is the real teaching. Even though this is a practice, the teacher and students behave in a genuine situation of teaching.

  2) Microteaching involves less a complicated process than a normal classroom. It has the class size, scope of content and also time reduced.

  3) Microteaching focuses on completing the specific skills such as the instructional skills, the techniques of teaching, the mastery of materials or the demonstration of teaching methods. 4) Microteaching can control the aspects of teaching, for example, the practice setting of microteaching, the rituals of time, the students and the methods of feedback and supervision. 5) Microteaching expands the feedback dimensions in teaching. After teaching in a brief lesson, the teacher gets a detailed analysis based on his/her performance. The teacher analyses his/her performance by the

  !

  students’ response forms to examine the detail of the students’ reactions in the specific aspect of teaching during the performance. Since the teaching practice is recorded into a video, the teacher can evaluate the performance by playing back the video-recorded and see what should be improved. The last, after this process of assessment, the teacher can re-teach for a further practice.

b. Practical Process in Microteaching

  Allen and Ryan (1969) state microteaching can be as a safe practice. A practice is a prior condition for many learning activities. The teaching performance can be improved by practicing. The skill and technique applied in the practice must be suitable with the lesson at that time. Allen and Ryan (1969) say, “microteaching was designed to provide teachers with a safe setting for the acquisition of the techniques and skills of their profession” (p. 4). In addition, between a micro teacher who starts to learn the skill of teaching, and the experienced teacher, microteaching is a realistic setting that can develop professional competencies.

  A student who is willing to improve the performance in teaching identifies the specific teaching activities. Microteaching consists of several teaching skills such as explaining, questioning, reinforcement, set closure and induction. The student who practices as a teacher will identify what act is appropriate in response to a particular skill so it can help the teacher achieve the aims of that skill, the

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  specific skills, for example, how to increase the students’ participation using a particular method or questioning the students (Allen & Ryan, 1969). The feedback and re-teaching practice can enable the teacher candidate to acquire the teaching skills fluently in a short time.

  Allen and Ryan (1969) also state, in a microteaching setting, a good teacher can apply his skill and it is recorded into a video as the result. The basic characteristic of microteaching builds a natural setting that gives a chance to the teacher (the student who practice teaching) to develop the instructional methods of the various teaching skills and techniques. The methods can separate the teaching skill and emphasize the teacher performance so the observers can focus on the teacher’s behavior. The well-performed models of instructional skill have a number of uses, they can be imitated as the example, show the alternative instructional, and stimulate the discussion about a teaching among the student who practices teaching (Allen & Ryan, 1969).

  The less number of students, duration and the scope of the lesson can lessen the pressure of the teacher who is practicing. Allen and Ryan (1969) say “one of the key principles of microteaching is to focus on a particular teaching skill or some very clear objective” (p. 7). It is related to this research that is intended to investigate the use of one of the teaching skills, reinforcement skill. So, the safe practice, modeling the instructional skill and focus on a particular teaching skill are a means to achieve the microteaching practice objectives.

  In Teachers Training and Education Faculty of Sanata Dharma University,

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  Language Education Study Program (ELESP) students. ELESP offers this course in semester 6 (even semester) and 7 (odd semester) in the undergraduate program.

  As stated in ELESP academic guidebook, Microteaching is a pre-requisite course before a student takes Program Pengalaman Lapangan as the further training of applying the concept and procedure of English language teaching in a real classroom especially in high schools (Tutyandari, et al., 2011). It is also explained by Suseno and Gilarso (1986) that say the teaching skills training passes two phases, those are a peer teaching –teaching in front of the other Microteaching students– and a real teaching –teaching in a real situation of classroom–. They add, in the peer teaching, a Microteaching student teaches a small group of students which consists of Microteaching students and it is called “Microteaching” or Program Pengalaman Lapangan I.

  The student who is assigned as a teacher has three-time chances to perform the teaching practice with the lecturer as the supervisor and three other students as the observers, the rest of Microteaching students act as the students and it goes by turns. The process of teaching a group of 4-7 students in the beginning of the course initiates the three-time progress tests of the teaching practice. The tests consist of levels of junior high school, senior high school and the complicated part, lower semester. The duration is about 30 minutes with a lesson plan that has been discussed with the supervisor. However, the duration in teaching lower semester depends on the agreement between the lecturer and Microteaching student.

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  Each student who practices in Microteaching lab gets a video record as the result of teaching practice. The researcher took the 2009-academic-year students.

  There are seven classes chosen as the subject. The focus of this research is on one of the basic teaching skills learnt by Microteaching students especially reinforcement skill. This skill will be discussed further in the next part.

3. Reinforcement Skill

  As stated in the introduction of theoretical description, this part will discuss the third specific theory that is reinforcement skill. It will be divided into two points of theory discussion. The first is about the types and techniques of reinforcement. Another part discusses the principles of reinforcement skill used in a classroom.

a. Types and Techniques of Reinforcement The researcher focuses on this skill as the subject in Microteaching class.

  According to Allen and Ryan (1969), as cited by Asril (2011), there are 14 components of teaching skill.

  1) Stimulus variation 2) Set induction 3) Closure 4) Silence and non-verbal cues 5) Reinforcement 6) Fluency in asking questions

  8) Higher order questions 9) Divergent questions 10) Recognizing attending behavior 11) Illustrating and use of example 12) Lecturing 13) Planned repetition However, English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University considers five basic teaching skills to be trained in Microteaching class. It is proved by Suseno and Gilarso (1986), that are used to be the senior lecturers and supervisors of IKIP Sanata Dharma, that there are many teaching skills need to be trained but there are only possible five skills taught in Microteaching course. These are the possible five basic teaching skills.

  1) Set induction and closure skill 2) Explaining skill 3) Questioning skill 4) Reinforcement skill 5) Stimulus variation skill

  Those experts state that reinforcement skill is one of the basic teaching skills trained in Microteaching course. The other experts also define their ideas about reinforcement skill. Turney, Cairns, Williams, Hatton and Owens (1973) say “positive reinforcement means positive response to a behavior which increases the probability of that behavior occurring again” (p. 12). Walker, Shea and Bauer (2007) have a similar idea that positive reinforcement is the presentation of a reinforcer showed because of the exhibition of a behavior that is expected. So, by those definitions, positive reinforcement can be defined as a means to convey an expression in order to cause a behavior as likely to happen again. Downing, et al. (1991), as cited by Walker, et al. (2007), add that the process of positive reinforcement causes the possibility of a behavior to occur

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  again by reinforcing the individual with the appropriate and meaningful reinforcer.