Role of learners, teachers, and materials

before acknowledging the underlying rule of it; 5 Fluency-focused activities must come after the accuracy-focused ones; and 6 The lesson should be developed from form-based activities to meaningful-based activities. ” Richards and Lockhart, 1996:118 119 However, each individual teacher has their own format of the lesson. Usually, their ways of formatting their lesson are greatly affected by their experiences in the teaching process. More experienced teachers are likely to be more consistent in organizing the activities in their lessons which make their lessons run more smoothly which finally can bring advantages for the learners. As stated by Doyle 1986, effective teachers “mark onset of transitions clearly, orchestrate transitions actively, and minimize the loss of momentum during these changes in activities” in Richards and Lockhart, 1996:121. In other words, the smooth transitions between activities are very important in order to maintain the focus of leaners and the flow of the learning process. In addition, Richards and Lockhart 1996:121 remarked that the transitions can be facilitated through the clues and interactional signs, which indicate the start of a change, the shift of focus, or the start of a new session. Taking for example, the transitions in primary classroom can be the change of the songs, the change of seating arrangement, the change of seating position, and so on. The clues that are familiar with the learners can help the teachers in making the transitions process run more smoothly. Then, the third dimension of structuring is pacing which refers to “the extent to which a lesson maintains its momentum and communicates a sense of development” Richards and Lockhart, 1996:122. Basically, pacing is about deciding how much time is allocated for each segment of part of the lesson in PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI order to maintain the momentums that finally affecting the learning development of the learners. In order to achieve the appropriate pacing within lessons, there are some strategies suggested by Richards and Lockhart 1996:123. Those strategies are presented in the following quotation. “1 Avoiding unnecessary or over-lengthy explanations and instructions; 2 Utilizing various kinds of activity within a lesson; 3 Avoiding unnecessary repetitive activities; 4 Choosing the activities with appropriate difficulty; 5 Setting the objective and duration of the activities; and 6 Monitoring students‟ performance on activities to maintain the suitable time for doing those activities. ” Richards and Lockhart, 1996:123 Finally, the last dimension of structuring is “closure that refers to the concluding parts of a lesson” Richards and Lockhart 1996:124. In addition, they also stated that closure aims to “reinforce what has been learned in a lesson, integrate and review the content of a lesson, and prepare the students for further learning” Richards and Lockhart 1996:124. The ways to achieve a closure can be by summarizing the main points of the discussion, relating the discussion to lesson objective and previous learning, applying the discussion‟s result to other situations, or by asking some questions related to the discussion. The types of techniques used by the teachers depend on the types of lesson being conducted. The good closure would be advantageous for the learners since it can make their process of learning become more meaningful and helpful for their next lesson. 2 Teaching technique According to Richards and Rodgers 2001:31, teaching technique is one of elements in the procedure of language teaching and can be defined as the ways to use the activities in teaching a language according to a certain method. Related to the special characteristics of the young learners, the teaching techniques in teaching them should be adjusted appropriately to those characteristics in order to achieve optimal results. Paul 2003:37 proposed some teaching techniques that are appropriate in primary classroom. The first technique is using repetitions. This technique is crucial for teaching young learners who learn more slowly and forget things more easily compared with adolescents or adults Brewster, Ellis, and Girard, 2002:28. By doing the repetitions during the lesson enable the young learners to remember and internalize the English knowledge better. Particularly for young learners who learn English as a foreign language, their contacts with English language outside the classroom are very limited. It means that they do not likely get the opportunities to use or practice their English outside the classroom. Therefore, the repetitions become significant to help the young learners learn English more slowly and remember English knowledge better. However, Paul 2003:37 suggested that the repetition technique should not be conducted through traditional drills of language elements. The repetition should be integrated in more communicative and meaningful ways such as through guessing the flashcards, singing the songs, or playing games. By doing so, the repetition technique can give some advantages for the learners. One of the advantages is that the repetitions do not make the young learners bored since they do them unintentionally and in a fun way. The second technique is using flashcards to introduce and practice the new words and patterns. The flashcards can be designed interestingly to attract the learners‟ attention so they become more involved in the process of learning. The flashcards which contain pictures are usually shown to the learners one by one to